If anyone has been having problems with IE7

[eurache]

I have two old CPUs and I want to share my experiences that I've been going through to help others.

First of all I got a Hewlett Packard Intel Pentium 4 and an Gateway Pentium 4. Gateway is older than the Hewlett Packard one. More than 4 yrs old or older... I forgets

Anyhew I was having all kinds of problems with getting online etc. Now, I know I[m no computer expert, but I do buy programs that do the fixing for me.

I have two programs that are recommended by PC World.

1. WinCleaner One Cleaner Cleanup Application
2. System Mechanic 6 - now they have an upgrade version of this System Mechanic 7.

Word of advice, I would update these about once a month to see if there uptodate. They really help me

Now my problem:

I had Microsoft updater update the patches and I foolishly added IE7 browser. It was working fine for awhile, didn't like the tabs tho Then one morning I couldn't get online at all. This was on my Hewlett Packard CPU. So, I went to my Gateway, updated Microsoft patches and such, but did not or unchecked downloading IE7.

After doing some research as to what to do or what was causing me not to get online, I found what was the real cause. It was that dayum IE7 browser. I found this site "Information Avenue" for Internet Explorer Tips and Tricks - Uninstalling Windows Internet Explorer 7. I followed exactly what it said. I first unloaded on my control panel the Windows IE7 updates and then the Windows IE 7 itself. It worked, I was back to IE 6, but I had to make sure to update what was removed, such as patches. So I went to Microsoft to update those patches, but made sure I didn't get download of IE7. So far (knock on wood), I've been doing good.

here's is the site I referred to :

thundercloud.net/infoave/answers/uninstall-ie7.htm


My next problem was being able to stay on "Chat Room"; it seems lately I've been bounced out with getting on with my Gateway and with my HP, I was not able to update the Java browser.

Thanks to IrishKale's suggestion, I decided to download this one site on my Gateway Foxfire browser - Mozilla. I had some problems understanding it, but it worked after a few tries Then on my HP, I decided to download Mozilla with the Google toolbar, this seem to be do better than going just to Mozilla itself. So, I would suggest to do the site that downloads Firefox from Google. Now I'm able to get to chatroom on both computers.. Yaya!!

Granted it takes alot of time to do this, but it pays off in a big way for future headaches.

My other suggestion is to upgrade your Antivirus and Firewalls. I upgraded those with Norton. It seems to be doing good on both computers. But my suggestions is to make sure you update or keep up-to-date with all your programs you download or you're gonna get a big mess. Since I have dial-up, it does take a long time, but it's worth getting my computers in order and up-to-date.

So this is my advice to all of you and I hope it has helped you in some way. If anyone else has suggestions, please reply on this thread.

Have a goodie

[riche]

It's a shame you had a such a set of problem and I'm glad you've got things running. I know it can be very frustrating to be stuck like that. I'm not sure why IE7 was not connecting for you. I presume the Internet connection itself was working. Perhaps the something, like the proxy settings, were wrong.

I have no real direct experience of Vista or IE7 but having read enough I would say that most people should avoid them both for now if possible. Vista is just not ready for general use. Unless you have a brand new, poweful, computer with the latest graphics cards (DirectX 10 compatible) then you don't gain anything over XP with Service Pack 2. The alleged security improvements seem to mainly consist of annoyances that can be disabled, to the detriment of the security.

Many major companies and organisations are refusing to upgrade to Vista or IE7 until they are in a more complete state. That would be Service Pack 1 at least for Vista.

At work I am involved in PC installs and am removing IE7 from the update lists to prevent it being installed. I've only tried the app briefly and didn't like the way the tabs worked. Having a small tab-lookalike alongside the tabs as a button to create a new tab was just confusing.

At work (Win2000 still on my PC, more efficient than XP) I switched to using Firefox for everything except for a very small number of things that require IE. At home, on my Mac laptop, I use Firefox exclusively. Tabbed browsing is very good, especially on a small screen, but it is the extensions that make a big difference. I don't use many but the NoScript and Adblock Plus extensions make it worth while. I've 'themed' it to make it look more Mac-like as well.

I'm not a general fan of JavaScript, it is too abusable and a resource hog (slows your computer down), but some sites require it. Most browsers force you to go into a buried menu to switch on/off scripting. The one good feature of IE was its Trusted Sites list allowing you to state which sites were allowed to use JavaScript and other features. NoScript for Firefox allows you control JavaScript by a simple menu. You can enable temporarily, permanently for a particular site, or just permanently.

Adblock Plus automatically removes many common advert images from sites and you can block images on request. It can improve performance by reducing the downloaded data for a page. You can disable this for chosen sites as well.

I'm not sure what you mean Eurache about the Google Firefox. Google have a Toolbar you can download for Firefox but I don't think they have a version of Firefox. Quite why/how the Google Toolbar would make a difference to Firefox that would help you don't know.

I haven't tried any of the chatroom stuff so I don't know how this works but Firefox should use what ever Java (which is not related to JavaScript, though JS may be needed for some Java apps) is installed on the computer. Since a ruling several years ago Microsoft could no longer ship their own version of Java so they have to recommend the official one from Sun. I would be very surprised if my Mac/Firefox/installed Java combination didn't work though.

Unfortunately my only experiences with Norton are bad ones. At work we use the McAfee anti-virus system and it has been very good. Friends use the free version of AVG (not obvious on their website so here's a LINK and find it effective. Avoids all those "renewal" annoyances from Norton. Being a Mac and Firefox user viruses are not a factor, plus I'm careful.

One thing I would recommend to anyone running a computer is to not skimp on RAM. Every computer will benefit from more memory. I used a computer running XP SP2 and only 256MBytes of RAM earlier today and it was horrible. 256MB is just not enough. The system was required more than that so every new operation caused data to be swapped to the hard disk (the virtual memory feature) which slows things down enormously. You really need at least 512MB for XP to work sensibly, unless you are prepared to run very little. Contrary to some information I've seen I would recommend laptops need more RAM than desktops. Laptops tend to have slower hard disks meaning swapping is even slower and with all the trackpad and wireless features running even more RAM is required. Saving a bit of money by going for less RAM is a false economy. An average hard disk (say 80GBytes) is more than enough for most people and spending a bit more for a bigger drive (say 160GB) will rarely benefit you. More memory (1GB or more) will be useful every time you use the computer.

Sorry, this turned into a bit of novella, which wasn't my intention. Hopefully it's helped someone though. I'm happy to try and answer any questions that arise.

[boxman]

Buy a Mac.
Problem solved.

[riche]

boxman said:

Buy a Mac.
Problem solved.

Although to some extent that's true, I don't like stating it too much. I recognise that for many people a Mac is not an option, and people must make their own decision. If someone expresses an interest I'll encourage it, but if they are clearly not open to it, that's fine. I work with Mac and PC on a daily basis, and prefer my Mac, but I'm not a zealot.

[eurache]

Hi RichE

I meant a Google toolbar that had Firefox/Mozilla download to with it..

but anyhew, thanks for responding and explaining in detail

I know.... I heard Norton is not that great, I had MAfee and I didn't like it, so I went with what I'm familiar with and used all the time. I heard of others like Panda? or something like that for anti-virus.

As for the connections, it could be the Proxy settings were wrong, but all I know is that once I unloaded IE7, I was able to connect.

I think I worked on MAC once a long time ago, but never got one I've started with an IBM PC and been with PCs ever since, so I'm satisfied. ;D

Sorry if I'm answering out of order, but you covered so much and I'm still half asleep LOL

But Thank you for adding on more info for everyone to see and if anyone else has something to add or say, please do.

Eurache

[riche]

eurache said:

I meant a Google toolbar that had Firefox/Mozilla download to with it..

Google have taken quite an interest in Mozilla and promote the browser (Firefox) and the Google Toolbar, but I was not aware of a build that has both combined. The source code is available so people do put together special builds, I'm using one optimised for the G4 processor in my Mac. Not sure it makes much difference but any speed improvements are a good thing.

but anyhew, thanks for responding and explaining in detail

Yeah, sorry about that. It kinda went on a bit, and drifted off-topic at the end.

I know.... I heard Norton is not that great, I had MAfee and I didn't like it, so I went with what I'm familiar with and used all the time. I heard of others like Panda? or something like that for anti-virus.

I can't (and should have said so) comment on McAfee's various products, I've just used their VirusScan stuff at work. I was always impressed that despite doing some pretty low level stuff within a system it didn't require a reboot on installation. Newer versions seem to but they add even more features.

On the PC I worked on the other day it had the McAfee personal firewall (or something like that) and it just seemed to be another thing to slow the machine down. I disabled it and switched on the XP firewall instead.

I think I worked on Mac once a long time ago, but never got one I've started with an IBM PC and been with PCs ever since, so I'm satisfied. ;D

I started on home computers (pre Commodore 64) and only really got to use PCs when I started at work 10 years ago. Since then I've used most versions of Windows (NT, 2000 & XP mostly) and moved over to a Mac for home use about 5 years ago.