Because Microsoft won't support XP users with the imminent release of IE 9, I think the choice is clear.
Firefox 4 is 17 times faster than than IE 8 on SunSpider, the most generous to IE of the popular JavaScript benchmarks. It's even worse for IE on V8bench and Kraken.
Firefox has hardware acceleration, screaming fast JavaScript, and a truly modern Web experience for the hundreds of millions of people who are using Windows XP. The choice is clear. Get Firefox 4