Black clock in IE - Slow browsing
 

Hi All - Running IE8 with XP
Broadband size L
Speed Test - last night and this morning 5.6Mbps average.
Just general browsing, no massive downloads.

I'm frequently, but not always, showing a small black clock icon bottom left of screen and everything virtually grinds to a halt. What does this clock indicate? If no black clock then something similar to my paragraph in red below.
If I close the browser and reopen it is usually OK, but only for few more pages and then slows right down/stops again.

Not sure if this is relevant (possibly indicating a general problem?) but progress bar? at the bottom (whilst I'm typing this) shows '(1 item remaining)Downloading picture http//cableforum.co.uk/board/images/gradient/gradient_panel.gif... (and has done for 20 minutes)
Edited at 12.23. I am using Zone Alarm firewall and now that it is turned off everything is OK. This would seem to be causing the problems. What could be the fix for this?

Any help appreciated.
Regards
G1

Re: Black clock in IE - Slow browsing
 

Zone Alarm, over the years, has proved to be an absolute PITA for generating obscure and sometimes even intermittent issues. My feelings are to uninstall it completely.

As to the browser, for years I have used Slimbrowser which is really a "skin" for IE. Since the advent of IE8 it became unusable. Reluctantly I made the switch to Firefox. However once configured it to my liking, I realised what I had been missing for all these years.

I suspect you might too if you make the change. :)

There are plenty of free alternatives to replace ZA. On this machine I have Free Outpost Personal firewall, M$ Security Essentials, Free Malware Bytes and free Spyware Blaster. They are all compatable with each other, seem to do the job, have a small footprint with very little intrusion once you have the firewall trained.

Re: Black clock in IE - Slow browsing
 

Hi Mick - I bit the bullet ;)and moved over to Firefox, so far so good. My browsing has never been so fast:D. Your comments re ZA are noted and I will be changing this once I'm sure that everything has settled down!!
Thanks very much for your help.
Regards
G1

Re: Black clock in IE - Slow browsing
 

:tu:
Nice to hear you are seeing improvements. :)