On the subject of browsers (IE vs Firefox) Anil Kandangath puts it quite well –
“Not to be left behind in the race to innovate, Microsoft has announced that it will not be releasing any further version of Internet Explorer. So apart from the security patches, if you want the next release, you have to wait for the next OS (which judging by optimistic estimates will be available in 2007, which means that you have to wait until 2009 to get a stable release with service pack 2).”