you don havta switch, just make it your secondary browser, so If FF goes down, You can go to Opera, and not back to IE...
viruses could bring it down, Ive had it quit on me a few times, but that was some file in Windows that was out of whack..
Bona is usurping all of the glory from posting about Opera, I think you posted it first but since he did it in the General Forum, he is getting a lot more credit.