... but it's not, it's the actual shell you use to operate the computer. And, unlike a shell in a *nix environment, it *can't be uninstalled and reinstalled* - which, when you combine that with the fact that it's designed to be infinitely extensible *by the content you browse*, makes it unsafe at any speed.

Free Software philosophy discussions aside, IE will be unsuitable for use as a web browser as long as MS inists on both making it a godawful uninstallable, unREinstallable tangle of crap woven into the core operating system AND making it extensible.