Hi,

If you uninstall Internet Explorer, it won't make a difference on how you connect to the Internet as long as you have another browser installed (Firefox, Opera, Chrome, etc) However, I myself wouldn't uninstall Internet Explorer as I use that as a backup browser, in case my browser(s) don't work anymore for some reason. But yes, you can delete IE (to my knowledge) via the Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs listing.

To answer your other question, deleting Internet Explorer would NOT stop Microsoft from unsupporting XP. Keep in mind, XP was supported for 12 years and beginning on April 9, 2014, Microsoft will stop supporting XP with additional security fixes. XP will still be usable, however, it will not be pushed with any more updates to it via Windows Update. That's why Microsoft suggests upgrading to the latest Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1. IF you buy XP for another computer, you can still install it no problem, but it won't receive any more security fixes beyond the final fixes.

Firefox doesn't use IE to access the network. But both Firefox and IE rely on various networking related components of Windows.

But you can't really uninstall IE: part of Microsoft's competitive strategy has been to build IE out of various shared components of Windows.

The problem with Windows XP is that the operating system itself will become increasingly vulnerable to attacks. While using an up-to-date browser is better than using an out-of-date browser, it doesn't completely isolate Windows from the outside world.

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