Firefox on the rise

I'm seeing an increasing number of web sites and individuals advocating the switch from Internet Explorer to an alternative, modern and more secure web browser - primarily Firefox.

Time to Dump Internet Explorer - SecurityFocus
Why You Should Dump Internet Explorer - Lockergnome
Three reasons to switch web browsers today - Joel on Software
Why You Should Switch to Firefox - Ben Goodger
UPDATE: How Mozilla's Firefox trumps Internet Explorer - MSN Slate Magazine
Internet Explorer Is Just Too Risky - BusinessWeek Online
4 New "Extremely Critical" IE Vulnerabilities - Slashdot

Then there are the Internet Explorer security alerts issued almost weekly, warning of new vulnerabilities in even patched versions of IE - most recently: Internet Explorer carved up by zero-day hole:

"Two new vulnerabilities have been discovered in Internet Explorer which allow a complete bypass of security and provide system access to a computer, including the installation of files on someone's hard disk without their knowledge, through a single click.

Worse, the holes have been discovered from analysis of an existing link on the Internet and a fully functional demonstration of the exploit have been produced and been shown to affect even fully patched versions of Explorer."

The latest version of Firefox is a mere 4.7mb download. Despite it's increased adoption rate it should still be considered a technology preview, and one can only anticipate that the release of version 1.0 expected in September will deliver a huge impact. My advice to you is this: read the articles listed above and come to your own conclusions. Then download Firefox.

UPDATE: Pop-up program reads keystrokes, steals passwords (in IE) and New Internet Explorer Malware Captures Passwords Ahead Of SSL - related to online banking websites