Good to hear. :) FF has been my chosen browser for years. It's a little heavy on resources, but Chrome isn't much easier when you look at all of what it's using. Besides, no one is spying on me like with Chrome. Google weirds me out that way.

Awesome! Good to hear! :)

How do I switch from IE to firefox and will I loose anything I have downloaded?

You should be able to:
Download Firefox - http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/fx/#desktop
Install Firefox
Start Firefox
Let it import your favorites, etc
Tell it yes you want it to be your default browser

Extra Credit:
Go to Tools - Add-Ons - Get Add-ons
In the upper right corner, in "Search All Add-ons" - type Adblock Plus
Choose Adblock Plus (current version is 2.3.2) and click "Install"
Restart the browser (I think, it will prompt you if needed)

Nothing gets lost.

Ditto to Tammi's response. The only thing I had to do was re-establish my passwords to my favorite sites. As with any change there will be some differences but well worth it.

Annoying pop up ads
 

Please please please stops these pop up ads!!! I use and iPad and the quilting board site is the ONLY place they appear.i have the pop up blocker activated, but this site is the only one they come to. And worse yet, they seem to bounce around and the ULTA ad doesn't have an place to close it - you have to try to ignore it. I'm ready to cancel this board.

I tried this and everything fouled up:( I had to uninstall and have to re download. I have a new HP laptop and windows 8.

Which part fouled up? It's usually a pretty straight forward process...