IE8 very slow

What can I do to improve speed after the 'upgrade' to IE8? When I first load IE it takes up to 2 minutes to load my home page (bbc.co.uk). I've tried several other home pages via the Tools menu but they always take ages to load. After that it's a bit quicker, but a new page never before visited might take up to 2 minutes. Several speedtesters report 12Mb/s-14Mb/s (cable router+wireless) so it's not a connection problem. OE6 downloads very fast too. I've cleared the caches and zapped the cookie list but no difference.

Once IE8 loads for the first time, does it continue to be slow, or is it just that initial loading?

My IE8 takes yonks to load - but I do have a busy iGoogle homepage. But once it's loaded it's OK.

Have you tried it in "compatability mode" with your BBC homepage? See if that makes a difference. 1Gb of RAM might be an issue too. I have heard that the code for IE8 is quite bloated and this could sap your RAM.

Have you tried Google's browser, Chrome? It was released just before IE8 which has all the functionality of Chrome. (I wonder who copied who?!!). It's a great deal faster than IE8, both when initially loading and afterwards.

You can download Chrome from here.

Hope this helps.

IE8 Loads in a blink of an eye.

If you have a load of add ons loaded in to it then i suggest you disable some of these as all they do is bloat out the software and do not really give any benefit.

Disable the accelorators and the like and just leave the phishing filter on and the popup blocker on. No need to have every so called tool enabled.

Can't stress enough to dump all the toolbar add ons from 3rd party vendors.

In reply to a post by GeoffB:

What can I do to improve speed after the 'upgrade' to IE8? When I first load IE it takes up to 2 minutes to load my home page (bbc.co.uk). I've tried several other home pages via the Tools menu but they always take ages to load. After that it's a bit quicker, but a new page never before visited might take up to 2 minutes. Several speedtesters report 12Mb/s-14Mb/s (cable router+wireless) so it's not a connection problem. OE6 downloads very fast too. I've cleared the caches and zapped the cookie list but no difference.

do you have spybot immunization applied?

If you want speed, use chrome or safari. If you want flexibility and features, use firefox. If you want.. actually I can't think of a good reason to use IE.

I uninstalled the IE8 "upgrade" for the same reasons. My start page is just blank, but even that took far too long to open. Gone back to IE7 and all is well, but I've had to disable the IE8 update in Windows update.

I use FF for most things these days though

In reply to a post by GeoffB:

I've cleared the caches and zapped the cookie list but no difference.

Clear the entries in the restricted sites zone that may have been added by security software.

Thanks for all the advice - I'll work through all the suggestions tomorrow.

Just goes to show how IE8's code is sooooo bloated.

A browser should be be able to take all the add ons that today's browsing experience demands,

Chrome has no problems with this.

In reply to a post by BandAid:

Chrome has no problems with this.

Because it has no add-ons?