Time to try Firefox?

I've resisted trying Firefox so far, but a few irksome problems with IE have recently pushed me over the edge.

1) We installed a wiki for internal collaborative use, and IE ocassionally hangs when trying to load the wiki's page.

2) I recently sent this rant to everyone at NormSoft: Download a large file using IE. Meanwhile, go back to typing email. As you know, email includes lots of spaces, so I hit the space bar all the time.

Suddenly, the download finishes, and the freaking download window pops to the foreground, intercepting all my keystrokes. When this happens, the active button on the download window is "Cancel". So as soon as I type the space bar key (which is very common - see above), it cancels the fucking download.

Now I have to go back to the web site and download the freaking 250MB file again. And then I forget it's downloading and start typing spaces again and I end up cancelling it a second time. Argh!

NowI'mwaryoftypingspaces.Anyonegotabettersolution???

3) There's some kind of limit on how many downloads you can do at one time with IE.  It fluctuates.  Right now it's 2, but I remember a few days ago I could do 6.  Seems like a ridiculous limitation since I have a 4MBit cable modem connection.

4) IE does not download files directly to the destination - it makes a copy.  Why?