Firefox 2 and 3 freeze-ups

Internet Explorer has not serving me very well (it's slow, it sometimes doesn't close, etc.).  Internet Explorer is functional, but leaves some things to be desired.   So, I decided to use Firefox a few months ago (until now) until I was forced to confront the 100th encounter with an interesting feature of Firefox somehow freezing my entire Windows XP systems from time to time.  We are talking about the mouse no longer moving and no keyboard recognition; it happens on multiple systems with many different users.  It seems to be a common problem (check out this search:  http://support.mozilla.com/tiki-searchindex.php?words=firefox+system+freeze+Windows+XP&sa= ) .  It might be an issue with Windows XP but we see similar issues on Vista as well.  It might be the way that Firefox does business.  I have no idea exactly, but it seems to affect both Firefox 2 & 3.   Anyway, the "party line" from the Mozilla folks is that it can't possibly by Firefox and they send users chasing their tails with suggestions to update/change drivers, firewalls, and all that.  Nevermind that there is no other application that does this and that the problem only occurs with Firefox and is reproducible across numerous machines and users.  Even if it is something else, Firefox has the unique distinction of activating this terrible bug, so there should be a bit more sympathy, but no.  Anyway, I loaded Opera (www.opera.com) on three of my machines and my Blackberry (http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/) and I'll see how it goes.  Hopefully it doesn't freeze up the entire Windows XP system like Firefox did ... not even Internet Explorer had that problem.  Opera also seems to be faster as well.  Anyway, I hope it will be an uneventful permanent switch.