OS wars apart, the mozilla-based clients (netscape and birds included), opera and others stand-alone mail and web clients ARE more safe than IE/Outlook per se.

the problem with IE and Outlook is that there are too many ways to "integrate" facilities that run software independently from the user's wish with an absurd level (root or administrator like), creating files, linking dlls, modifying registry keys all this to make "easy" to the user.

MS still thinking in the old way, when a computer was a standalone box, without exterior connections. That's the only way I can explain the multitude of ports and services that are open by default on the XP family... TFTP and RPC open for home users?