Re: IE uninstallation
Open up My Computer - there's Internet Explorer. Go ahead and type google.com in the address bar and hit enter - it switches to IE mode, and takes you right there. It's built into the shell. (Which is the reason for most spyware infestations - if you compromise Firefox/Opera somehow, you might have access to the history, cache, or bookmarks. If you compromise IE, you have access to the entire system, including Windows itself.)
Uninstalling it completely means you'd have to get another file manager like
AB Commander or something. It's possible, but so much of a hassle that you may as well just keep IE as clean as possible and continue to use it as a file manager. Just toss
Firefox or
Opera on there and get used to one of them. It's either that or going through the steps necessary to secure IE - patching, (which you should do anyway), locking the HOSTS file, disabling ActiveX, etc. Nothing wrong with using IE if you can keep it clean and you stay completely away from unknown sites.
If you care,
Secunia says that IE6 has
17 unpatched vulnerablities (80 total, so if you didn't patch, that's a big problem), Firefox has
4 unpatched vulnerabilities (one of which involves dragging images to the address bar, and another which involves Apple Java) and Opera 8 has a scant
0 vulnerabilities so far which surpised me, actually.
Threaded Mode