Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) freezing often or failing to load could be happening because of several probable causes. For the most part, fixing Internet Explorer 8 is easy to do, but it may require that you check and diagnose several different areas in order to pin point the exact cause of the slow load times or freezing. Learn how to diagnose and repair Internet Explorer 8.
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Internet Explorer 8 freezing or failing to load usually has to do with another program or process effecting IE8. Follow these simple troubleshooting steps to get IE8 up and running more smoothly.
1. Disable your antivirus or antispyware.
Chances are good that you have at least some type of antivirus program running on your PC. Because so many viruses and spyware threats come from the internet, sometimes antivirus/antivirus programs can do too much and stop Internet Explorer from working properly.
If your antivirus or antispyware is running, you should see an icon for it located in the Windows 7 taskbar. Simply right-click on the icon and exit out of the program. In certain cases, an antivirus or antispyware program may run silently in the background as well.
If so, you may need to open up the Windows Task Manger and quite all antivirus programs from there. Task manager can be accessed using CTRL-ALT-DELTE.
After your spyware is shut down, try closing out of Internet Explorer, waiting a couple of minutes, and reopening Internet Explorer. Often times, this will fix slow loading times and freezing.
2. Disable Add-ons or Plugins
If you have installed any add-ons or plugins for IE8, they can sometimes be the cause of making Internet Explorer malfunction, freeze, or load slowly.
Shady software will sometimes install add-ons or plugins without your notice, and sometimes browser trick websites will prompt you to install an add-on to run a certain program.
To troubleshoot this, open up Internet Explorer and select Tools > Manage add-ons. From here, click on any add-ons that are not distributed by Microsoft and click the Remove button. After you have finished, try closing out of Internet Explorer and restarting.
3. Troubleshoot Processes
In certain cases, a process or malicious app may be running in the background and preventing IE8 from working properly. To troubleshoot the process, you can try performing a clean startup. See this article from Microsoft to learn more.
4. Check the Time
Internet Explorer 8 will run improperly and not display websites correctly if the time on your PC is wrong. Usually, if the time is off by a couple hours or even a week it does not effect IE8. However, if the calendar, time and date is off by several months, IE8 may stop functioning properly.
Click the time in the lower right-hand side of the taskbar to check the date, and select Change time and date settings to change the time.
5. Reinstall Internet Explorer 8
If IE8 is still running poorly, you can also try to remove it and reinstall it. Here are the basic steps for reinstalling Internet Explorer 8:
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