I installed IE7. I noticed that I get one favicon.ico for every website I visit. They are sticky. I have to remove them manually by opening the temporary internet files folder. What these icons are for?

I also lost quite a number of shortcut icon on my desktop. Some of those are replaced by the little arrow at the corner of the icon and nothing else. Some others were replaced by Windows generic icon. No matter how many times I reset the icons using the property of the shortcut, they are removed again as soon as I go online. Any fix for that?

The back-forward buttons, the favorites buttons, and the URL field are fixed unmovable. Is this a feature of IE7 or I am missing where I could reorganize them to my preference?

Because of these reasons I might abandon IE7 and go Firefox. Anybody has a history with Firefox? Would this be a better idea?