So there I was, sitting there looking at my yahoo home page for the hundredth time. It was telling me.no, it was begging me, to download the new Internet Explorer 7 with the built in yahoo search bar. It was too perfect, an upgraded browser with the search bar built right in. I was already using the add-on yahoo tool bar that you can download separately. But this looked so much easier.

I could have the search bar WITHOUT the rest of the yahoo toolbar, and that would save a little space on my monitor. I could just type in my keyword at the top, and all would be well. Or so I thought. Then I downloaded it, and tried to use it.

This is where the anger began. To be honest, I knew better. I have been using Windows since 3.

1 was out. I have gone through the nightmare of the new software that spends the next 12 months crashing computers, freezing browsers, getting hacked, and just making people want to punch a hole in a wall. I knew better than to download an upgrade that was brand new. Everything slowed down. I couldn't download, my yahoo email wasn't working, and pretty much every site was snail pace.

But it was ok I thought to myself. I would just go into my control panel and uninstall. But before I uninstall, I better make a backup of all my favorite sites. Wait a minute, what happened to my favorites folder? Where did it go? Seriously, if anyone who reads this knows what happened to the file with my favorites, let me know. I can't find the thing anywhere now.

I can still get to my favorites on the browser, but I can't find the actual folder on the computer to back them up now. It has been months now and I still haven't found the folder. So if I can't back up my favorites, how do I get rid of version 7 without loosing them. I was certain that I was sunk. I would either risk loosing them when I uninstall, or I am reduced to surfing like I am on one of those dial-up modems from the mid-nineties.

Then it hit me. I would check out Mozilla Firefox. Worse case, I could use IE to check all my favorites, and then go to those sites in Firefox, and save them in the new favorites.

Well, I didn't even have to work that hard. When I was installing Firefox, it asked me if I wanted to keep all of my history and favorites. Simple enough, don't have to go through all that work now.

Bonus. As it turned out, Firefox also had a search bar installed in it, this one by Google. This was convenient because I was studying how to advertise websites and blogs using Google. Now I could search Google without going to the site.

I also noticed that Firefox uses the tabs that I saw on IE 7. Then something else hit me. Firefox had tabs at the top so that you could search multiple sites without having to open up new browser windows and it had the Google search bar.

IE 7, which was making me angry, had the same tabs and a search bar from yahoo. IE 7 was a rip-off of Mozilla Firefox, and a bad one that screws with your processor. So now I use Firefox, and I won't go back to Explorer. In fact, I don't even like using other computers now because IE is still on everyone else's computer.

Not only is it faster than IE 7, but it is also faster than the older IE 6 which wasn't screwing with my computer at the time.

Doug Ragan is a self taught internet and computer guy who is putting the finishing touches on his internet based empire. http://www.homebased-success.com/articles.htm