Internet Browsing Problem - Help Please

For the last couple of weeks whenever we're browsing the internet or more specifically, approx 90% of the time, when we try to use Facebook our pc either freezes or crashes. When it freezes we click on something to try and get it working and get 'not responding' at the top of the page, we then have to exit the whole thing and load up Google again, which is very frustrating.

This occasionally happens on other websites but like mentioned for the most part its Facebook and only the last 2-3 weeks??!!

We're currently using IE8 on XP.

I asked a friend who works with pc's and he suggested trying to reset the Internet Explorer settings, which we've done and for a short time it was great, but it seems to be back to square one again now. Currently all other websites are fast and instant.

Any ideas would be great

Thanks in advance

 

Sorry I don't have the answer, but I too have noticed that sometimes when going to Bookface, the whole machine just freezes. I'm on Windows 7 using Chrome. I do find that after a couple of minutes, it miraculously sorts itself out and then I can use the machine as normal after that.

The common factor as I see it is that both Chrome and IE use the same core components in Windows to handle all the security handshaking. I wonder if its a bug there. Sorry I know that doesn't help, but maybe if it is that, maybe Microsoft will figure it out and release an update at some point to solve it.

 

XP is now an old operating system whereas IE8 is a new web browser. My advice would be to try Firefox instead of IE8, as XP may be struggling with the new IE

 

Have you also reset cookies? Facebook likes to keep you logged in and they may have changed settings at their end which may be causing issues with certain browsers. Firefox is quite a stable browser, I'd be interested to know if that fixes the problem?

 

Bilbo, the internet is only a toy, dont expect it to work reliably.
It never does.
Mine freezes up occasionally on the Natwest site with Firefox.

One day when they get it all sorted the internet might be something we can rely on.
At the moment its best to just enjoy it when it works and curse it when it dont.

 

Thanks Ellen, I'll have a play tomorrow, I've just had a quick 'google' and found a bit of info that suggests that IE can struggle on XP now as it no longer recieves software updates, but the likes of Firefox and Chrome automatically update every so often. Most suggestions that I found were also saying Firefox or Chrome

Also apparently Google no longer supports IE8, whether that will have anything to do with it I don't know??, i may have mis-read that

 

Try using Chrome instead, just to see what happens. Alternatively you could download the installer for IE8, uninstall your current version and then reinstall IE8.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/internet-explorer-8-details.aspx

 

True Pete, just seems odd how I can be on here for example with everything working at full speed and then nip to FB and the whole thing comes to a grinding halt and goes in to melt down and also seems odd how its been like that 24/7 for the last few weeks??!!, still as long as I can get on here I'm fine

 

Fingers crossed one of these solutions will help you! It's a pain when stuff like this happens.

 

All down to what scripts a site includes as part of their web pages to provide "a rich user experience". FaceBook may have updated those / increased them in size / complexity and your PC may be struggling, or maybe something else has started hogging memory so there is less for your web browser to operate with.

On an aging PC it would be worth making sure you have the maximum memory that can be installed. Memory that was expensive when the machine was new may well be cheap now - and if you are happy to risk buying sight-unseen on eBay then you may get a very good deal. I doubled the memory on my PC with identical chips that someone else was flogging following an upgrade they had made to their PC. Revolutionised mine!

I've changed the hard drive in my Laptop for a solid state one, and that's bucked that up a lot too. Both are far from state-of-the-art machines.

Worth trying Firefox and Chrome too. Chrome may be more of a memory hog than Firefox, but my experience of them has been that Chrome has been faster; I also like the way that Chrome works, and interfaces with Google (provided you are not paranoid about Google harvesting your browsing habits to provide you with more context-sensitive browsing)

Either way, you can download either/both and try them without having to give up on IE8.

 

Thanks Kristen , not sure what amount of memory we have but a check on what free memory space is available suggests there's approx 55-60% unused space??

 

That may not mean much, unfortunately. Start : Control panel : System should tell you how much memory you have installed. Can't remember with XP whether you can get above 2GB, if so 3GB is probably the limit. If you have less than 2GB and can get more memory chips cheaply enough (and have spare slots to fit them in - or a complete set of, bigger, replacement memory chips is cheap enough) then its definitely worth doing. Otherwise stick a new PC on your list for Santa

 

Don't get a PC, get a laptop that you can take on holidays and stay up to date with the latest reductions at Wilkos!

 

Scrungee my lovely,
you MUST make the effort to try and get out more...

 

Don't buy a laptop unless you are going to take it with you (Yeah, you can check the
latest reductions at Wilkos if you want to!). Very expensive components, when they fail, unless you absolutely need to have your PC on the move.