No actually we removed a feature that would make the pages faster to load, but which IE sadly don't support, but instead of just ignoring it like any decent browser it decides to tell us it supports it and then choke on it.
Same, I pretty much just let it be turned on. It's always doing something though, either uploading or downloading something.
Mine isn't on for 24/7. More like 24/2 lol. But I'm normally always downloading something though. And it would waste alot of power if it was on 24/7.
It's not a PC. They are too weak to handle such traffic. They probably use a series of servers to provide the website.