I am assuming you are referring to the bottom taskbar and you would like it to be double width rather than single. Do you have the Quick Launch toolbar activated? If not perhaps this is why. My Quick launch is active and sits over top of any programs I have opened and showing on the lower portion of my taskbar.

Its usually pretty simple,, just close your browser and any instant messaging programs and go to add/remove programs in control panel and double click ie8. You might want to read the microsoft support article for XP. Here is a link that might be useful: Microsoft Support - Uninstall IE8

I am a little confused here, by house pic do you mean the little icon of a house that is up on the top of your browser which should lead to your home page? Or do you mean you have an actual picture of your house somewhere? if you mean your home page a couple of things could have happened if you are being sent to a WOT red site you could have a re-direct infection on the machine that has hijacked your home page. Or you somehow changed your homepage to that site. It would help to know if you are using IE or fire fox and which version number Please always include that info. for firefox go to the page you want to set as your home page while on that page go up top click on tools options on the first tab (main) will be the startup area since you are on the page you want as your home page click on where it says use current page. For IE (not knowing your version) do the same go to the page you want to set as your homepage while using your IE, Click the arrow to the right of the Home button(house icon) , and then click Add or Change Home Page. In the Add or Change Home Page dialog box,click Use this webpage as your only home page.Click Yes to save your changes. let me know if it goes back to that other red wot page if so you do have a redirect infection.

I've been using Firefox since longer than I can remember, and a beta version has never been pushed to me. Auto-updates to release versions, yes. Beta versions, no (I am not subscribed to the beta channel and have never been forced to it). Regards to browser security, there's a newly discovered vulnerability in the SSLv3 protocol -- POODLE is the acronym. It's a combination of browser and server. SSLv3 was superseded some while ago by TLS, but many servers are still running SSLv3 (along with TLS). A secure browser connection that starts on TLS can be tricked into downgrading to SSL 3.0 (if the connecting server still supports it), and a hacker can intercept bits of the data flow when that happens. The expectation is that SSL 3.0 will not be patched since it's considered outdated. Servers that are running it will (should) soon be reconfigured to no longer support it. Users who are running old browsers that don't support TLS will no longer be able to connect to secure sites such as online banking or shopping after servers no longer support SSLv3. The recommended defense until servers are fixed to to eliminate SSLv3 is for users to set their browser to not allow SSL 3.0 connections (minimum TLSv1). If your old browser of choice (or requirement) doesn't support TLS then you're stuck being susceptible, and will be out-of-luck when SSLv3 is fully redacted. IE6 , for example, supports TLSv1 but the option is not enabled by default, it must be manually turned on. (TLS is currently up to v3, which IE6 does not support past TLSv1.) Test your browser