Although I recommend to all my friends and colleagues to use Firefox with Noscript, Adblock plus, and Web of Trust add-ons, I do need to use IE at the work place in the SharePoint environment (an MS product). Unfortunately for general internet browsing purposes, IE is the worst client you can use - most hackers are writing malware specifically targeting IE as the largest base of users, and knowing that the endless security holes are easy to exploit. Even more unfortunate is the fact that IE will run any script on any site, no questions asked, which means that it is easy for an unscrupulous site owner to hack into your system.
I've found that all versions of IE subsequent to 10 have introduced new problems, even with Microsoft's own applications. One thing you can do if you want to get back to a stable version, is uninstall your current version, which will cause your computer to automatically revert back to IE10 if you are using a newer version of Windows, and IE9 if using XP. However, it will be important to disable automatic browser updates or you will be back to square one.