Resolved Recurring hang-ups with IE8

I've been using IE since about version 3, so I'm very comfortable with it. I currently have IE8 installed (since version 9 wasn't compatible with Win XP) and am finding increasingly obnoxious hang-ups the longer I'm hooked up.

I've sent diagnostics to MS, but all I get back are a bunch of generic "fixes" that would try the patience of a saint.

It seems that the problem gets worse the longer I stay on line. First thing in the morning, after I power up, evrything flies well. After four hours or so, I start to get long periods (>5 minutes) where Task Manager shows 100% activity and also says whatever site I'm looking at is not running. I'm also getting "Excessive CPU usage" messages from Norton.

It's a pain to use TM to shut things down and then have to re-boot. I don't have that much running and have pop-up blockers engaged. I do get quite a lot of pop-ups within the web-sites I visit (particularly from Comcast), some of which seem to originate from Comcast rather than the website. Pop-up blocker doen't block these, presumably because they're embedded deep enough that it doesn't spot them.

It's getting to be a pain in the butt to shut down and restart every 2 hours or so. Maybe a change in either the ISP or the browser is appropriate. Maybe I should look into Google or one of the other browsers. I'm sure not impressed with IE8 in my current situaqtion, but several sites I visit regularly don't seem to work very well with Google.

We used to be with MSN, but they broke their cooperation with Verizon, who we used to have as our ISP, when VZ decided to get out of the landline business. Right now, we have a package with Comcast that includes TV cable (they have the monopoly in our city), land-line phone service and ISP services. We'd still be stuck with Comcast for TV, but I'm seriously considering alternatives for phone and internet.

Any outside opinions would be appreciated.

 

Disable all your add-ons and see if it is better. Then enable them one at a time to see if you can find the culpert...
I am not at a computer that has 8 on it, but I think that it is the same as 9. Tools/Manage add-ons.

 

Sorry, Pete, since there had been only the one reply. I'd forgotten about the post.

The problem is still active, but none of the suggested fixes had any effect. I guerss it's juist one of those imponderabled when dealing with Microsoft.

Maybe I'll jsut switch to Google.

I'll mark the post resolved.

 

Go to Add/Remove programs and Remove/Uninstall it. It should revert back to 7. Then install 8 again and see if that helps.

 

The problem still plagues me. It ocurs on both my machine and my wife's netbook. Maybe it's just one of those IE glitches that MS isn't concerned about since they migrated to IE8 and IE9.

Maybe it's time to get a new computer - mine is about 8 years old. A new one would have Windows 7 and IE8. I certanly don't want to get into touch screens, so it's likely that Win7 will be my default choice.

Meatntime, I'll soldier on with the old steam-gauge version until it blows up and is unrecoverable! Steam engines are still viable!

I'll mark the string solved.