Cactus Jack,
Agree with above comments by La Femme Michele.
If they don't fix a problem in IE7 within a week, I will use FF 2, too. (English test
With Firefox, the only extras you need are what you choose to run as "plugins".
These might be required for using websites that use flash, java etc.
These are easy to add into FF, it will show you how.
Firefox does not make your computer immune, but it uses a different software, which is less of a target for virus/malware. So sometimes something bad can get into the computer through IE, it might not be able to in Firefox.
So it's more secure.