Erik,

it is safer than I.E. but it is a lot slower. I use Avant Browser usually but that is just as full of holes as I.E. but at least has SOME protection. If you're not bothered about speed, Mozilla or Opera are better bets, with Mozilla Firefox latest version possibly the most secure.

There are plenty of free downloads like popup stopper (built into Avant Browser), Spybot Search and Destroy, Spywareblaster and Spywaredoctor that guard against annoying spyware and malware. The best protection though is a good firewall ( Windows XP firewall is crap ).

Zonealarm and Sygate both have free versions that are very effective and work with all the anti virus software I've used.