IE8 on low performance PCs

[Jon]

Does anyone have any comments on upgrading to IE8 on low performance PCs. I'm thinking of Pentium
III 500MHz with 192 or 256Mbytes RAM with XP SP3?

I've found that these types of PCs tend to boot up reasonably quickly (60 to 90 sec to desktop, with
perhaps another 30 sec for a usable desktop) and are reasonably fast running Office 2003 and IE7.
Would upgrading to IE8 slow them down appreciably?

 

[Craig Coope]

Does anyone have any comments on upgrading to IE8 on low performance PCs. I'm thinking of Pentium
III 500MHz with 192 or 256Mbytes RAM with XP SP3?

I've found that these types of PCs tend to boot up reasonably quickly (60 to 90 sec to desktop, with
perhaps another 30 sec for a usable desktop) and are reasonably fast running Office 2003 and IE7.
Would upgrading to IE8 slow them down appreciably?

Are you talking about XP here? I have XP installed on my old laptop
which is a 1.4Ghz Celeron and it barely runs. It can take up to 30
mins to boot to a state that the hard drive is not constantly
whirring. It's only 128Meg though.

 

[Jon]

Yes I'm talking XP. Fairly recent re0install, tweaks (indexing off, eye candy off, etc). It's
surprising how fast they are.

Does anyone have any comments on upgrading to IE8 on low performance PCs. I'm thinking of Pentium
III 500MHz with 192 or 256Mbytes RAM with XP SP3?

I've found that these types of PCs tend to boot up reasonably quickly (60 to 90 sec to desktop,
with
perhaps another 30 sec for a usable desktop) and are reasonably fast running Office 2003 and IE7.
Would upgrading to IE8 slow them down appreciably?

Are you talking about XP here? I have XP installed on my old laptop
which is a 1.4Ghz Celeron and it barely runs. It can take up to 30
mins to boot to a state that the hard drive is not constantly
whirring. It's only 128Meg though.

 

[1PW]

Yes I'm talking XP. Fairly recent re0install, tweaks (indexing off, eye candy off, etc). It's
surprising how fast they are.




Are you talking about XP here? I have XP installed on my old laptop
which is a 1.4Ghz Celeron and it barely runs. It can take up to 30
mins to boot to a state that the hard drive is not constantly
whirring. It's only 128Meg though.

Honestly Jon, what's tolerable to some isn't to others. In a not too
dissimilar computer to yours, I tried IE8 for a few weeks. Then I fell
back to IE7. Along with it's shortcomings pointed out by Kaspersky,
this browser may not have matured enough and it will show you what slow
looks like.

Even though I went back to IE7, my most favored browser on that system
is Mozilla's Firefox now.

FWIW YMMV

Pete

 

[Jon]

Thanks, that's good feedback. I will hold off using IE8.

I prefer not to use Firefox since it's yet another programme to install, maintain and update.

Jon

Yes I'm talking XP. Fairly recent re0install, tweaks (indexing off, eye candy off, etc). It's
surprising how fast they are.




Are you talking about XP here? I have XP installed on my old laptop
which is a 1.4Ghz Celeron and it barely runs. It can take up to 30
mins to boot to a state that the hard drive is not constantly
whirring. It's only 128Meg though.

Honestly Jon, what's tolerable to some isn't to others. In a not too
dissimilar computer to yours, I tried IE8 for a few weeks. Then I fell
back to IE7. Along with it's shortcomings pointed out by Kaspersky,
this browser may not have matured enough and it will show you what slow
looks like.

Even though I went back to IE7, my most favored browser on that system
is Mozilla's Firefox now.

FWIW YMMV

Pete

 

[Leythos]

I prefer not to use Firefox since it's yet another programme to install, maintain and update.

And yet in all of the world, FF is more secure than using IE 6 or 7, and
doesn't load the system down like IE does.

Try FireFox, it's a lot safer by default than IE is.

 

[Daave]

And yet in all of the world, FF is more secure than using IE 6 or 7,
and doesn't load the system down like IE does.

Try FireFox, it's a lot safer by default than IE is.

K-Meleon is an acceptable alternative, too.

 

[Jon]

That sounds propaganda to me.

For what it's worth, I do use Firefox on more powerful PCs, but have found that it's better to use
IE7 on low performance PCs.

I prefer not to use Firefox since it's yet another programme to install, maintain and update.

And yet in all of the world, FF is more secure than using IE 6 or 7, and
doesn't load the system down like IE does.

Try FireFox, it's a lot safer by default than IE is.

 

[RobertVA]

Are you talking about XP here? I have XP installed on my old laptop
which is a 1.4Ghz Celeron and it barely runs. It can take up to 30
mins to boot to a state that the hard drive is not constantly
whirring. It's only 128Meg though.

Low physical RAM availability coupled with numerous services and/or
applications loading at startup are probably more responsible for that
than the clock speed and CPU model.

 

[Leythos]

That sounds propaganda to me.

For what it's worth, I do use Firefox on more powerful PCs, but have found that it's better to use
IE7 on low performance PCs.

I have nothing vested in making this up, and FF runs faster on a machine
with less resources than IE does.

Maybe you need to consider what "crap" you have running on that low
resource PC.

 

[HeyBub]

Thanks, that's good feedback. I will hold off using IE8.

I prefer not to use Firefox since it's yet another programme to
install, maintain and update.

Jon

Also, Firefox will cause your cat to develop warts. If you don't have a cat,
I don't think it will matter in that regard.

 

[Jon]

"FF runs faster on a machine with less resources than IE does."
Well, that's not my experience. I've re-installed XP for different people on lots of PCs, generally
laptops, with low memory and slow CPU, and IE runs better. IE6 is best, but I figured that it was
better to have IE7 with people using multiple tabs than people opening up several IE6 instances.

"Maybe you need to consider what "crap" you have running on that low resource PC."
I'm talking about a clean re-install. I also add Foxit Reader, and Office or Works if the PC came
with these disks. I don't install anti-virus (I've tried AVG but it makes them unusable 0 I warn
people to use web-based email where the provider scans for viruses, and to not go to dodgy sites).
So, nothing that I would call "crap".

That sounds propaganda to me.

For what it's worth, I do use Firefox on more powerful PCs, but have found that it's better to use
IE7 on low performance PCs.

I have nothing vested in making this up, and FF runs faster on a machine
with less resources than IE does.

Maybe you need to consider what "crap" you have running on that low
resource PC.