I believe that IE still has the advanced option that lets you choose the JAVA virtual machine (JVM): you can install both suns and microsofts. To change between them you change the advanced option .... and I beleive you need to reboot. Different Java Apps require diffferent JVM's .....
IB has a solid trading platform, very basic but functional and does it job well. If you intend to trade alot and need quick automatic stop, then you can download an API program which allows for that. As a whole I am happy with IB. And would recommend it to you.