Internet Explorer slow? Instructions on how to fix a slow browser

Internet Explorer slow?
Internet Explorer slow?

Are you using Microsoft Internet Explorer? Is Internet Explorer slow? Than this article may help you to find a solution. As with all computer related problems, when you want to solve a problem you have to start at the base: the computer health. When your computer is slow anything running on it will be affected and therefore also Internet Explorer will be slow.

So what can you do to check if your PC is in a good health and if not what steps can you do to improve it? In the article: computer clean-up you can find instructions and tips to improve your computer performance.

Okay, at this point your computer is running without any problems, but you notice that Internet Explorer is still running slow. What can you do to speed-up internet explorer?

Internet Explorer Slow because of toolbars

Do you have installed additional or third party toolbars in your Microsoft Internet Explorer?
Are you using for example the Google Toolbar? A toolbar that allows you to search for websites, without the need to go first to the website of Google. You can fill in the keyword direct in the toolbar and the results will be shown. Have you also the Bing toolbar and the Yahoo toolbar installed? Maybe any other toolbar? YouTube maybe? All those toolbars are very handy but it also has a drawback, it makes internet explorer slow!

I recommend you to be very selective in deciding which toolbar you install in your web browser. By disabling the toolbars you do not want to use anymore you could test if the toolbars are causing Internet explorer running slow.

A specific site make Internet Explorer slow

You also should check whether the web browser is always slow or only on specific websites.
I have seen a lot of people complaining that Internet Explorer is slow, but often Internet Explorer is not the problem it is the website that they are visiting. For example in the article: YouTube slow, I explain several possible causes which makes YouTube slow. The problem is not cause by the web browser at all. The same count for Facebook. In the article Facebook slow, you can find possible causes of a slow Facebook page. So it is important to determine if your web browser is constantly slow, or only on a specific website.

Add-ons that make Internet Explorer slow

Microsoft and third parties have created a lot of add-ons. You can compare an add-on with a toolbar. The main difference is that add-ons are normally not visible in the toolbar.
A good example of an add-on is Skype. When you have installed this add-on and visit a webpage that contains phone numbers, automatically you will have an option to dial this number via Skype. All these functionalities are added by an add-on.

So if Internet Explorer is slow, I recommend disabling all add-ons to see if one of those add-ons is causing the problem.

Deactivate functionalities in Internet Explorer

It can help to speed up Internet Explorer to deactivate some standard options.
For example you could deactivate the option Web Slices or Related links. If you do not use those features disable them.

If you are looking for more tips to speed up a slow internet, I recommend to read our main page: slow internet.

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