IE 8 slow? Try this tweak...

http://www.edbott.com/weblog/?p=2443

I haven't tried it myself, because IE 8 is running fine on my system. But... if you're having performance issues, you may want to consider giving this a try.

 

I'll appreciate anyone that can point out what does it actually do...

Thanks for the tips, will keep watch

 

I wonder if my IE sped up or if its my immagination... I didn't restart the system... and it was OK before (faster than IE7 at any rate)

Anyway, good find

 

I do notice a speed increase in IE8 browsing after restarting with this tweak. I don't know what it does, but it works. Thanks.

 

it registers the actxprxy.dll library... that should have been registered as part of the IE8 installation, the author of the linked post says.

 

Yes I read that but he didn't explain further, thanks though.

 

You won't see any change unless you restart. Registering a DLL has no effect until it is loaded the next time.

Gary

 

I think it said so in the article...

Anyway... placebo effect so far

Edit:
Hmm.... It feels even faster after a restart - but it was wuite OK/good before too.... I don't know... anyway once again, thanks for the post!


Edit 2 in same go:
I think I can suddenly type a bit faster in IE

 

I think I noticed that tabs open a bit faster. Other than that, I don't see any noticable speed increases. But that in and of itself is a great improvement, as the thing that bugs me the most about IE is slow tab opening.

Even though I don't know how registering that dll boosts speed, the tweak seems to work. Thanks, swarmer.

 

I think loading times also increased - its instantaneous - I think its making better use of emporary files now.

 

worked for me

 

This tweak has worked for me. Some websites that were kinda sluggish before are much faster now. Its had some effect on all the computers I've done it on, with Vista Home Premium 32 and 64-bit, XP Home SP2 and XP Tablet.

Thanks!!!

 

I cant see the link

 

The website is inaccessible for me. Can anybody copy and paste the content here?

 

It's unaccessible here too, MSP, on a comcast cable line.

 

I tried it on Vista 64 bit, I get a failed to register as bla blab la dll not found...... hmmm

 

Update 28-March:

As I said in the original intro to this post, I was reluctant to publish this tweak, because I have absolutely no explanation for why it should work. If someone else had posted this, I would have assumed it was snake oil and would have been extremely skeptical. As skeptical as Rafael Rivera, even.

Actxprxy.dll is one of the core libraries for Internet Explorer (along with a few others such as Urlmon.dll and Mshtml.dll). If it’s not properly registered, IE won’t work at all. And re-registering it should never be necessary except in extreme circumstances.

Having said all that, I can only point to the experience I reported in the post linked below, which has since been confirmed by others in comments and e-mails. Are they all experiencing placebo effects? That’s possible, I guess. It’s also possible that some third-party software or add-on is somehow screwing up this DLL and its associated registry settings. I have contacted some engineers at Microsoft to see if they can shed light on the issue and will follow-up after I hear from them.

—–

Over at ZDNet I just published the results of some performance testing I did involving the current crop of browsers. During the course of my research, I stumbled across a tweak that I was at first hesitant to publish. After thinking carefully about it, I decided to do so. I’m glad I did. I have now heard from easily a dozen people via e-mail and in comments who say the improvement in performance for them is amazing.

Please read the original post (Is IE8 really fat and slow?) to get the full background. If you’re experiencing problems with IE8 being slow to load pages, especially when multiple tabs are involved, this might be worth a try. Because this tweak is simply registering a DLL that should have been registered as part of the IE8 installation, there is no harm that can come from trying this.

Here are the instructions.
FOR WINDOWS XP

1. Click Start, then click Run.

2. In the Run dialog box, type cmd and press Enter.

image

3. In the Command Prompt window, enter this text and press Enter:

regsvr32 actxprxy.dll

4. Restart your computer.
FOR WINDOWS VISTA/WINDOWS 7

1. Type cmd in the Start menu Search box.

2. Right-click the Cmd shortcut that appears at the top of the search results list, Under Programs, as shown here.

image

3. Choose Run As Administrator.

4. In the Command Prompt window, enter this text and press Enter:

regsvr32 actxprxy.dll

5. Restart your computer.

If this works for you, let me know in the comments below…

 

I also felt if it was like a placebo.

 

The mentioned "tweak" was is March'09 - I doubt that it would "still" work with the latest IE8 version and Windows updates.

cheers ...

 

Well, i "tweak" my IE8 yestardy and i feel some improvement with the tabs things.

Before this, sometimes to open a tab taakes like 20-30 secs. and with IE7 was instant.