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There are many decent alternative, more functional and safer "skins" that help prevent or eliminate certain UI problems, though they may be not effective against some attacks due to shared / open-source code and proliferation of apps with third-party environments such as Java / Ajax, Flash, javascript, ASP etc.

One of the safer and well done Chromium/AppleWebKit KHTML browsers (Safari, Chrome, Chrome+ etc.) is Comodo Dragon. Comodo also makes a Firefox (Gecko HTML) "clone" IceDragon. Both share a nice, light Comodo user interface and seem more stable than their better-known "original" browsers. Comodo is well-known Web security firm and has other free programs like firewall, AV and email apps (Comodo free products download page)

Also check out their excellent CCE (Comodo Cleaning Essentials) which contain a stand-alone KillSwitch (IP activity monitor), one of the best full-function Autoruns programs, and CCE AV scanners, as well as their firewall, which is considered one of the lightest and best security products in CPU and memory utilization.

SRWare makes Iron, which is also claimed to be more secure and more privacy-oriented than its open-source Chromium "cousins" Chrome and Safari.

Opera has been an excellent choice of different browser, though many of its early advantages over other browsers have been somewhat diminished due to features incorporated in latest versions of open-source and IE browsers.

For people who like or must use IE, there are several free alternative browsers that use IE-engine, with much better, more usable "skins" and many useful built-in extensions and add-ons :

1. Slimbrowser from FlashPeak that was already mentioned here (fast, tabbed, QuickFilll form-filler, popup blocker, site grouping, language translator, DL manager and many handy UI options). FlashPeak now also makes SlimBoat which has a "skin" similar to its IE-based app but is based on Firefox/Gecko engines code.

2. Avant Browser is also fast, has many extensions (privacy, anti-freezing, memory leaks prevention, site grouping etc.) and features. Also, Avant Browser Ultimate is tri-core, which means it can be put in 3 different browser modes by user (Chrome, Firefox and IE) which could be handy if some web sites are shoddily coded and break the page or making it unattractive when rendered in some other browser.

3. Maxthon. Unfortunately, Maxthon 3 version is not anywhere as good as was Maxthon 2.

4. The World (Chinese) - nice, light browser with great recovery and anti-leak / CPU load options, but doesn't seem to be actively developed at this time.

5. QTWeb (also seems to have stopped development) - excellent, small, portable browser with several security features, quick engine-switch view modes and appearance skins.

FD: I am not beneficially involved with any of the above companies. This is just an (quite incomplete) information for the possible benefit of fellow FReepers.