IE6 is just as bad as any Microsoft based software; it'll take 3 times longer to do anything than other equally as good software. IE6 needs internet security software to protect your computer cos they let people who have enough coding savvy to create active x components to feck with your pc (such as installing trojans or viruses or even phishing pages!)

IE7 attempted to take on board all the parts of Firefox browser but then (in what they call improvements) destroyed a large part of functionality.

Try printing a high resolution page on IE6 and see how much of the page was missed in the print?!? IE6 doesn't word wrap on printing!!! IE7 developers took on board the Firefox printing capabilities which allows word wrap and page reduction to let a page and ½ to be reduced to one page or vice versa.

IE7 reduces the chances of Phishing pages and (although heavily paranoid) controls active x installations.

I would recommend NOT using IE6 ever and to choose Mozilla Firefox or Opera browsers if you don't want IE7 (Although Opera does everything far better and faster than IE or Firefox and it's free).

Your PC freezing maybe due to a corrupt download of files relating to IE7 or an issue with your firewall.

If you believe there is an issue of a virus I would suggest running a full system scan with the latest updates from your antivirus software or go to http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ where you can perform an online antivirus scan.

Houston :-)