Internet Speed Issue and changes done to correct the Issue!

[SirWinner]

Recently one of the two PC's at my dad's office was ONLY performing Internet Explorer 7 at just under 56% of the speed of Firefox 3 in the Download Direction.

With NO activity between the PC's or the opposite PC accessing the Internet, I did 3 sets of tests using http://www.speedtest.net one at a time in both browsers with them loaded at the same time.

The results were very consistant.

This was very very confusing!

First thing that I did was to get rid of the unnecessary Yahoo and Google Toolbars.

This did speed up Internet Explorer 7 a little... but not enough.

Next thing was to get rid of unnecessary ActiveX controls used by the previous secretary.

That made a major difference in the Download Speed in Internet Explorer 7... It didn't quite get up to the speed of Firefox 3 but it was a lot better.

However on the other PC, Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 3 were practically the same on speed.

Just thought this might be helpful to someone here.

[TechPro]

Yes it's true, one of the biggest issues with both IE (any version) and FireFox is the items that you add to it. IE does a lot with \"BHO\" (browser helper objects) and ActiveX addons which may enhance the browser but also open flaws and weaknesses. Combine that with the addon toolbars and your have a recipe for a lousy browser experience. With FireFox it's (again) the toolbars but also the addons and plugins that obviously slow it down.

[Spidey]

Maybe that’s the main reason I don’t have all the problems other people seem to have with IE. I run my comp in Spartan mode.

Oh, did I mention that the Google toolbar is evil…