Windows 7, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 8

[ChristopherR]

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I recently installed an SSD on my computer running Windows 7. I would like to have Google Chrome as the default browser. So for this should I remove my current default browser, which is Internet Explorer 8, or can I leave it as it is and just change my default browser settings? Does it matter if you have more browsers installed on your computer?

[arturro]

It is not possible to uninstall Internet Explorer from Windows since it the part of the Windows kernel. And, moreover, even your Google Chrome uses some of its libraries to perform its functions. So don't even try that. And why do you want to do that? You can keep Internet Explorer and still have your Google Chrome as the default browser.

[ChristopherR]

Ok, thanks for your answer, and one more question I would like to ask if you don't mind. As what you are saying, is it applicable for Mozilla Firefox? Can I have even Firefox on my computer keeping my Chrome as the default browser? I might require that also for some my work.

[Ricky58]

Internet Explorer is required to perform updates using "Windows Update" option (Windows patches bugs). I have tried to do this with only Chrome, but it was not possible. So I concluded that may be Windows Update might be using IE somehow to perform the updates.

[arturro]

Ricky, since the launch of Windows Vista; updates are no longer done by the Internet Explorer. But it is Windows which requires IE for some of the other internal tasks.

ChristopherR, yeah it is applicable to any application that you might be using. This is not only concerned of Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari or IE8; you can have innumerable browsers installed on your computer and still have one single browser as default.

[ChristopherR]

If Internet Explorer 8 is what mandatory for Windows 7 then why there is a choice given to have innumerable browsers on your computer? Why doesn't Windows just force you to have limited number of browsers on your computer?