Do you experience performance issues in Internet Explorer? Do you find the other browsers loading the websites pretty faster then IE?

Just follow the below simple steps to speed up Internet Explorer 8:

Install Google Chrome frame plug-in:

You may wonder, how chrome frame plugin will increase the performance of IE Most of the reviews says that the Google Chrome  plug-in  has boosted the performance up to 10 times and do not report any security issues.

You may download it from the below website:

http://code.google.com/chrome/chromeframe/

Clean everything:

You may only know the process of cleaning cookies, temporary internet files. However, there are few more other files that you may need to clear to increase the performance. Cleaning only the cookies, and temporary internet files may not help in improving the performance.

To clean the basic files, click Tools, Delete Browsing History, check Temporary Internet Files, clear all the others, and click Delete.

I personally use a tool called CCleaner (a free utility from piriform), which deletes all the unwanted files. You may download it from the below website:

http://www.ccleaner.com/

NOTE: I recommend setting up the Secure Deletion option to a minimum of NSA (7 passes) so that all the information including the index.dat (hackers target this file very often) file. You may go to Options in the CCleaner tool to setup the secure deletion.

Turn on Pop-up Blocker:

Unwanted pop-ups consumes your internet bandwidth, and also slows down the loading of the actual page, since most of the pop-ups will have rich graphics which tend to attract you. Turning off the pop-up blocker will help you to save the bandwidth. To turn on the pop-up blocked, perform the following:

Click Tools, Internet Options, Privacy.
Check Turn on Pop-up Blocker.

Correct the LAN settings:

If you are using the Internet in your personal PC, you may disable the LAN settings. Goto Tools, Internet Options, Connections, LAN Settings and uncheck “Automatically detect settings” check box.

Set the “Check for new versions of stored pages” option to Automatically:

If this option is set to “Every time I visit the webpage, or every time I start Internet Explorer”, the IE may need to check for the updated verison of the webpage every time you visit. This option can be set to Never also, if you visit only few websites.

However, automatically will load the updates only when it is really required.

To change the setting, visit:

Click Tools, Internet Options, Browsing History Settings and change the setting for “Check for newer versions of stored pages”.

Remove unwanted extensions:

The browser extensions will be enabled/installed when you visit some of the websites and from there it runs with every time even though you doesn’t require it. Remove the unwanted extensions. If you can’t judge which are required, and which are not,  you may follow the trail and error and identify the ones that you dont need any more. This will maximize the performance a lot. Below are the steps:

Click Tools, Manage add-ons.
From the list identify the one that you doesn’t need any more and select Disable.

Remove Accelerators

In the same add-on window, Click Accelerators in the left-hand Add-on Types list. Select Disable or Remove the ones that you doesn’t require any more.

Click the Search Providers add-on type, Also, check Prevent programs from suggesting changes to my default search provider to keep current settings.

Change the cache limits:

The more cache you have, the faster the web pages loads. Check that the cache Disk space to use value is set to the maximum possible. (You may not require this in GBs, but ensure to set it around 400-500 MB).

Also, it is not recommended to set it in the default Windows drive, since the capcity of the partion is very less and your swap file may also require some room.

Use the Move Folder option to store the files on a seperate partition to make it fastest.

Uninstall browser toolbars:

Lot of sites will install toolbars along with IE. Ensure that you download the latest version of IE from the Microsoft website, so that it doesn’t install any other toolbars. Toolbars may also cause slow down and performance issues.

Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed:

Even though you regularly clear the temporary internet files, it will not be immediately after closing the browser window. The quick option in Internet Explorer settings will clear the temporary internet files folder when the browser is closed, so that you don’t need to remember to clear the files.

To enable this settings, go to Tools, Internet Options, Advanced tab, under Security, check “Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed.”