Internet Explorer 8 is AWFUL!!

[Brickboy240]

I just made the mistake of "upgrading" my IE 7 on my work computer to IE8. Well..I did not know it was a mistake, as IE 7 runs ok on this computer! LOL

Man...IE 8 is SLOW.....really slow. Opening links in other windows is crazy slow and its just God-awful. I am running 4GB of RAM and a Core 2 Duo processor and have a fairly clean high rpm drive on this Dell...not exactly an underpowered machine and IE 8 is just slow and clunky! I am running Windoze Vista Home Premuim, too. Scared to go to Windoze 7...since I finally got Vista to run well without any trouble.

Other than Firefox and Opera...has anybody else tried Google Chrome? Would that run faster than IE 8? Does Chrome come with alot of junk on the install that I don't want or need? Any advice?

Somethings gotta give because this is just too damned slow for words.

thanks in advance for the suggestions...

[jrev04]

ive experimented with chrome, but firefox pretty much got all my attention. has work flawlessly for me

[Brickboy240]

Does Firefox load a bunch of extra garbage (like toolbars) with its install? Stuff that you don't want?

I might go with Firefox over Chrome.

Something has got to give with IE 8...I just hate it.

I am guessing that Windoze 7 is equally as awful...but I don't know anyone that is running it. too bad our IT guys want us all on the same OS because I am running Umbuntu Studio on my Dell laptop at home and its really nice. I am not a fan of Windows...even if I have Vista running fairly well now. Vista is a real memory hog.

- brickboy240

[GFunk]

I love Chrome - it's quick and simple. I like it's interface above the others as well. However, that's my opinion and since I find Chrome better for some reason, I'm sure there are plenty of others who don't like it for the exact same reason (interface "feel"). I can't describe exactly what I like, but it's just intuitive for me.

However, I use IE8 a lot. I've found it performs better in Win7 than in Vista. May just be me, but I have zero problems so far. I'm running a similar system - Core 2 Duo E6600, 4GB DDR2-800, 2x320GB in RAID0. Older system (built when conroe came out), but still runs fine.

In my experience Win 7 is smoother to use than Vista. They fixed the little annoyances I had with Vista and I also didn't have the driver issues that were there when Vista was released (XP -> Vista was horrible at first!). I give two thumbs up to Win 7, and IE8 works quite well with the OS.

But Chrome is still faster and feels nicer. I've only noticed a few sites that don't look correct under Chrome but do look correct under IE8 - that's my only complaint.

[plastikxd9]

IE8 was horrible on my windows 7 install...until I got rid of AVG. Removing that sped things up quite a bit and now it's great. Do you have AVG running? Or any other antivirus that does things like "link scanning" or active phising detection?

[Jason9x]

Ive used Firefox for years now and refuse to use anything else. I only use IE when i have too. I too downloaded IE 8 and also think it is slow as hell! Get Firefox. It has no add on garbage that you don't want, you can add whatever you want to it, and it is the most secure of the browsers.

[Brickboy240]

I am running CA Antivirus....I don't know if it does all that. I am not a computer expert or total techie, so I venture into altering everything I have and installing new things with caution.

Don't I need the protection of this stuff?

- brickboy240

[ChristopherBurg]

I use Chrome as my primary browser on my Windows, Linux, and Mac boxes. Personally I love (even if it's not feature complete on Linux of Mac) it for a few reasons.

First is the speed. It's a friggin' fast browser, especially when you compare it to Internet Explorer or Firefox. Like Safari (and I think Firefox 3.5) the JavaScript interpreter actually compiles download JavaScript to some kind of byte code which greatly increases the speed of sites using JavaScript (in other words almost every site). I also like that the interface is clean and uncluttered, something Microsoft never managed to implement in any of their browsers.

But my favorite feature of Chrome is the fact each tab is a separate process. What does this mean to the user? A lot. First and foremost if a single tab crashes it only crashes that tab. In other browsers if one tab crashes it usually takes the entire browser with it. I like running with 20-some tabs open so I would prefer my browser not take a big dump.

Second it means Chrome is better at managing memory. I know what somebody will say, since each tab is a separate process Chrome uses more memory. That's true, in the short term. See when you close a tab in Chrome is kills that tab's process which reclaims all the memory that tab was using. On other browsers, especially Safari and Firefox, they suck up memory over time. If I leave either running for several days (I never close anything unless I'm going to reboot) Safari and Firefox will both easily eat up a gigabyte of RAM as well as another gigabyte or two of virtual memory. This is because they both cache everything and leak memory like a sieve leaks water.

Google Chrome also sandboxes each process. This means in order to exploit the browser and be able to physically access the underlying operating system you have to compromise both the Chrome sandbox as well as the WebKit rendering engine. So that's a huge security boon.

Most of Chrome's good stuff is underneath the hood so to speak so nobody notices it. But it's those under the hood features I find desirable.

With that said there is one major thing I don't like about Chrome, there is no release of Xmarks for it yet. This isn't Google's fault but alas I like having synchronized bookmarks between my computers.

[Brickboy240]

Chrome does sound good. I ahve plenty of memory at 4GB of Ram. Most of the time, I run the browser and maybe Outlook at the same time and in the evenings, only the browser. I should not run into memory issues.

Looking into Chrome and Firefox right now...thanks!

- brickboy240

[nalioth]

While I think your heart is in the right place, allow me to edit your thread topic:

Originally Posted by brickboy240

Internet Explorer is AWFUL!!