I found that running iE8 / Vista, caused an occasional problem on this forum anyway,
sometimes when typing a reply in the box to post replies, the text you are typing would drop off the bottom of the screen. So you can still type, but can't always see what!!
Because iE8 has some minor issues in other areas, and I find it slower, I don't really use it at all now.
My cousin who is a computer scientist with IBM Australia, and often visits the UK and stays with me, and also my son who is an MS Certified computer anaylst, both recommended Mozilla Firefox, which they both now use on their own PC's.
So I tried it, my default is now Mozilla Firefox, (Free Download) which is less resource hungry, and runs really well.
I also use Google Crome (Free Download), which is even quicker, bit of a strange interface, but you soon get used to it.
I found that each does some jobs better, so I use accordingly.