Because Bill gates won, the geeky prick! IE is so rooted into Windows now. The update feature works through it as do many other things in Windows. I don't want to run more than one browser on my `puter. Netscape long ago became such a memory hog and took so long to boot up it is no longer a viable option. Mozilla or Firefox may well be desirable alternatives and if I ran a Mac I would certainly use them. But on my PC running WinXP, Internet Explorer is already there. Turn off Javascript and run Spyware detection/blockers and well as updated antivirus software and that will have to do. I mean, how much time buggering around with security are we expected to deal with? Soon there'll be no time left to do anything else. Once again a useful resource that technology provided got fucked up. No wonder we can't do anything useful anymore.