Anyone else notice IE8 is slow?

[steveblue]

Hi all,

Has anyone else noticed that IE8 in Windows 7 is so slow at doing anything, try opening a new browser tab...... a good 15-20 seconds to open, can be slow to show pages etc

now I didnt have this problem in Vista with IE8 , which wasnt much slower than Firefox..... talking of Firefox... in Windows 7 it takes a good 15 odd seconds to start (buttons become responsive) but once its started its quick ;-)

does anyone know why IE8 is so much slower in Windows 7 than in Windows Vista??

[cluberti]

The behavior you complain about is classic misbehaving add-on, and that could mean an activex control or any add-on that hooks IE's process start as well. The difference is likely the fact that there's either something (or things) installed on your Win7 install that weren't in your Vista install, or perhaps they're the same but aren't entirely Win7-compatible.

What happens if you run Windows in safe mode or run IE with the -extoff parameter from the command line (or both)?

[Jadestar]

IE8 is definately faster than IE7 in all regards...HOWEVER, i have seen more than a few times that IE8, even a new install, tends to break quite often ending up in either not working completely or not working very well. The simple solution that has worked every time was to completely uninstall ie8, reboot, reinstall. Do not open ie8 but instead get into internet options, change default homepage, reset security zones to default, connections tab > proxy settings and UNCHECK auto-detect settings (major source of alot of load time problems or no load at all) and then reset advanced settings to complete defaults. Of course, after you reset defaults you'l have to change homepage again...google.ca works nice and is a fast load. This should resolve any IE8 issues.

Also, you will need to reload addons like flash or java.

p.s. the -exoff option can also be used by right clicking an IE icon, either on desktop or in start menu (aslong as its the REAL shortcut not a user created one) and select run with no addons).

p.p.s as a side note, chrome is MUCH better and MUCH faster, albeit not compatibile with asmuch as ie is.

[Insomneac]

It's usually add-ons that slow IE down.

You can check which ones take the longest to load.

In IE, go to Tools, Manage Add-On's, then check the Load Times column on the far right.

You can also try to temporarily disable them and see if it loads faster.

Edited November 4, 2009 by Insomneac

[steveblue]

cheers for the replies

After checking the IE8 add-ons and disabling them one at a time, it seems the trouble was caused by the Java addon, this was the reason that Firefox took an age to start up as well.