"Saying that "I haven't had any problems with IE" does not mean those issues are not present." No, only saying that I've been lucky enough or smart enough to avoid being bitten by them. "...many IE users simply refuse to see the potential threats." Hard to do since they are widely publicized every time a new one crops up. "...they MIGHT have malware already hiding in their machine and they are totally unaware of it." Doubtful since I check my system regularly for just such an occurrence. I get "tracking cookies" all the time simply because I'm too lazy to do aggressive cookie management. My AV alerts me every time a virus attempts to download. I've been programming and working with computers since before the first IBM PC so I'm well aware of the threats and what they can do. I'm not saying that IE is problem free by any means, merely that by being proactive and taking the time to guard against potential threats, one can avoid the vast majority of pitfalls that some people seem to have. I agree that web developers have gotten perhaps lazy in what has been pretty much an IE world. Faced with a choice of using IE's features, which work for the vast majority of visitors, trying to duplicate them for another browser or coding a plain vanilla site that will work for any browser, guess which one most have chosen? If FireFox is successful that may change. If nothing else, it's healthy for Microsoft to have some real competition. Just don't expect that FireFox is going to lead to some hacker free Nirvana. I do agree that you can get hit anywhere, even though certain sites may be more prone to danger than others. If you want to be as secure as possible then you should probably abandon Windows entirely and either pay the extra money for a Mac or bite the bullet and get Linux if you can live with either of those choices. The other alternative is to get something like VMWare Workstation, and run a virtual machine where you can browse to your heart's content and know that your real system won't be affected by anything you run across. You can even run Linux as your main OS and run run Windows in a VM for anything that requires that OS. There are alternatives but saying that using IE will inevitably lead to doom and destruction simply isn't true.

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken