I used a free trial of HistoryKill, which had the coolest feature... just hit Alt-Space and all IE windows vanish. Even minimized taskbar icons. Works fast. Hit again and they come back. It had other features too but since the trial expired I just go without.

I always wished you could list other programs to hide also, like photo editor etc. but you couldn't do that. So now I'm writing my own code for the purpose. Strictly to hide selected programs at the touch of a hotkey.

If anyone knows of a program that does this, it would save me some time. On the other hand, when I get around to it, would anyone like a copy?

PS- all programs suck, but IE isnt that bad. I've used it for years and only been hijacked a few times, and its easy to fix when it happens. Getting hijacked is like a speeding ticket, makes you feel dumb and you learn to avoid it.