I used to be constantly hit with trojans and worms when I used IE. They embedded themselves all over my computer. Macafee and AVG could find some but not all the hiding places. Had to reformat 4 times in 6 months. Yes, I had all the security updates and windows patches, but they not only didn't protect me, they made my computer run very badly and caused additional problems.
The last time I reformatted I dumped IE and installed Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird. 3 months later I haven't had one problem with a worm or virus, my computer is clean, functions just like it's supposed to, and I'm a very happy camper with Mozilla products.
:: climbing down off my soapbox and returning you to your regular programming ::
woooot