Slow isn’t exactly the word, doggy might be. And it wasn’t always so. But my version of IE8 running under Windows 7 became so slow it was not useable. So it was time for the google.

Judging by the various posts I ran across, it seems that this is a common problem; all begging for a solution. And yes, there were a number of cautious solutions posted. But really, who can believe someone that claims that you must run IE8 as the administrator? Go ahead, try it.

One of the posts seemed to point in the right direction, it was quite possible that something I installed was causing the problem. Or perhaps, there was something wrong with a recent Microsoft update. Indeed, I had a good suspect as I had recently installed some old tools found in Office XP. I mean, who wants to shell out for a completely new office suite?

So I spent several hours trying to restore my computer to a point before that installation. Anyone having luck with Window’s system restore? I’m not. Each and every restore point that gets so diligently installed failed. It seems, that a number of tools remove files when they upgrade, for example, FireFox which produced repeated failures because restore could not find one file or another. Sometimes the missing file was suppose to be in, of all places, the temp folder. Once a missing file was suppose to be in my trash bin. I guess it is asking too much for everyone to put installation files in a place that doesn’t get cleaned out once in a while.

So rather than de-install my favorite old XP tools, I had a hunch. My suspect, IE8’s protected mode. I was already having trouble browsing sites that used cookies, regardless of the security settings I chose. What about that check box to turn this feature off?

Voila! IE8 is fast again!

You have to wonder if this so called protected mode is a bit of a typical republican overreach. I mean, why use a browser if most of the websites I surf fail to display properly? In addition, I assume that all my browsing is being recorded by Microsoft.

The truth is, it is not a browser’s place in life to continually check and record where I am surfing. The checking rightfully belongs attached to my Internet or Network connection, either in my hardware router or as software installed on my system.

Is protected mode worth waiting around 30 or more seconds for a page to load? I doubt it.