Roughly 60% of people use Microsoft's Internet Explorer to browse the web. This majority leads virus and spyware writers to exploit unpatched security vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer (usually in the form of Active X objects) to Automatically, and without your permission, install these unwanted mal-wares.
Don't follow the crowd, and instead use an alternative browser. At Fairnet, we recommend Mozilla's Firefox (Download). Not only is this browser safer than Internet Explorer, but we actually like it better! At only 5.7 MB, its lightweight and fast, but packs a lot of useful features. It even automatically imports all your bookmarks and settings from Internet Explorer!