... 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.
If only IE was an application
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.