I tried using IE a couple days ago on my friend's new computer. It kept crashing, so I was forced to install Firefox. It would crash every time I went to http://www.sysinternals.com/FileAndDiskUtilities.html. It pissed me off. The computer is less than a month old, and IE is already completely shot by spyware.
That usually points to a dysfunctional user.
Everynight I scan for spyware. Never comes up. When I thought I had a virus on my laptop it turns out that it was being funky because Winzip had been configured to run over the network and it was seeking an absent network path.
I don't have popup problems.
I don't even have a virus scanner on my computer. I just go to TrendMicro housecall once a month or so.
So if you have problems with IE, it's because you're too newb to configure your computer to be secure.
Ok, what do you suggest? She's obviously not going to learn not to press "yes" to ActiveX (or DirectX, if our plans here go through...), so what's next?
I also like FireFox's plugin stuff. Like the weather, mouse gestures, web development (editing .css while viewing pages is sweet), not to mention Adblock and a whole lot of other little ones. Although, since I last reinstalled Linux (when I got rid of Windows partition and gave more harddrive to /home), I havne't bothered getting any extensions. ohwell