Same performance from IE6 for me since installing SP2. The bug is Windows :D
You can have as many browsers as you like, Windows will act like a spoilt sulking five yr old and ask you a question from its list of annoying questions each time you switch between them, but it could be a price worth paying.
I use IE (& Firefox) because they are the most functional of all of them though the others are getting much better. All web pages should open with all browsers, but well some just don't as web designers seem to design only for IE.
Good ones to try would be: Firefox or Netscape8 (imho) they are very good, and offer tagged browsing which is very neat :)
I've not come across any, except IE, which will take a spell checker plug in.

A search will find you the web sites to download the others, they are very small downloads compared to IE.

Message edited on: 08/17/2005 04:34

And every one said, 'If we only live,
We too will go to sea in a Sieve,---
To the hills of the Chankly Bore!'
Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.

Edward Lear
http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ns/jumblies.html