How in the Tech

Improve IE8′s speed by disabling bloated add-ons

By Adam Myers ⋅ July 29, 2009 ⋅ Tags: Internet Explorer

The loading speed of Internet Explorer 8 can be extremely frustrating at times. If IE8 is your browser of choice, you likely always have it launched and running, so the slow start-up speed isn’t overwhelming. For me, and many others, IE8 is only used when a particular site doesn’t display or otherwise function correctly in our alternative browser of choice. It’s at this point that the sluggish launching of IE8 gets a bit silly. Not exactly sure what I mean? Open IE8 and in the tab bar you will notice the text Connecting… – it will stay like that for a few seconds even though the browser appears loading. Eventually, your default home page will load and in my particular set up, that delay is about 5 seconds. Trivial? Maybe.

So what exactly is IE8 doing while the home page tab sits at Connecting… ? The browser is loading any add-ons or plugins currently installed and enabled, as it relates to Internet Explorer. Have Skype installed? You’ve got an IE add-on hooked in that must load. A Google product? Same thing! If you are curious what all is loading Microsoft has provided an interface through IE8 that not only identifies the add-ons but displays the actual loading time in seconds.

To take a peak, in IE8 goto Tools->Manage Add-ons.

From the dialog you can quickly see that Google Toolbar takes 1.5 seconds to load. It may seem like splitting hairs, but a few tenths of a second for each add-on does add up and while you probably need at least a few of the add-ons, you should ask yourself if you need all of them – especially if IE8′s launch speed drives you nuts.

I disabled Skype and Google Toolbar and shaved a good 3 seconds – something that is definitely noticeable.