I'm not a maximizer, except in some applications like Excel and Visual C. I usually don't minimize either. Depends on what I am doing, really. When I am surfing I keep the windows open so it is easy to Alt-TAB to something that looks productive when I hear someone coming. When I am working I don't care about the windows behind, they can be minimized or maximized, doesn't matter to me. When I walk away from my desk I minimize everything in case someone walks by, that way no incriminating evidence is left on the screen (except auto-refreshing ESPN pages that automatically pop the browser window back up after a refresh).