As a security&usability concerned technologist I look at Internet Explorer as the devil’s work and absolutely not something anybody should use!
FireFox has therefor been my choice the last 6 months or so, and before that Opera the last 4-5 years. Both are developed by companies that care about security and usability in contrast to Microsoft.

Whenever I’m forced to use IE, I feel crippled since great features such as mouse gestures, ad blocking, tabbed browsing and a good download manager isn’t available.
Unfortunately I’m in such a situation that the computer labs at Macquarie University where I study doesn’t share my concerns, and I’m forced to use IE.

You should think that was true, but not. Luckily there are great developers out there that think brightly and develop software a step further.
The result is John Haller’s Portable FireFox which can be placed on e.g. a USB device and brought along wherever you go

And it doesn’t stop there. If you want to, unless you already have, disengage from the terrible Outlook Express, you should take a look at for instance Thunderbird, that very much look like OE, but additionally supports extensions, themes, RSS feeds and is more secure - the same as FireFox.
Similar to Portable FireFox you can get the program Portable Thunderbird, which is also developed by J. Haller.

Please test out FireFox and/or Thunderbird and surf the web more securely, faster and with increased usability.