I don't think that it's easy to totally remove IE. In fact I reckon that it's not possible without breaking Windows itself since various non web browser utilities use parts of it (e.g. the HTML control etc.). Wasn't the outcome of the US anti-competitive court cases that IE was too integrated into Windows to unbundle so the court ordered Microsoft to provide a way to configure non MS web browsers and other "middleware" applications? You can set any other browser as your default using Start -> Set Program Access and Defaults and only use IE for selected sites (e.g. Windows Update) that require it or when applications (e.g. Excel) insist on using it in spite of you choosing another default browser.