Total meltdown now restored

Hi Chaslang,
you were helping me with the about:blank problem some weeks ago - then I disappeared. the reason was that my PC gave up on me and left me unable to access internet, e-mail and most of my programs. I have been forced to do a complete reload of the computer and I am now downloading the protection that i should have had in the first place!! thanks for your help - I will be back if anything else unpleasant happens. one thing though - what do you recommend as an alternative to IE?
Cheers, Ale.