the reason XP machines seem to slow down

[nic2k4]

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/12/exponential-algorithm-making-win...ould-be-fixed/

This affects single core systems the most, but it's still noticeable on dual core.

[bevills1]

Very interesting article. I'm using IE7 and have been reluctant go to IE8 because of a number of problems I've seen posted by IE8 users. I notice the article says "The problem is that—especially among those who are still using Internet Explorer 6 or 7—each time you boot your Windows XP machine, it slows to a crawl." Have IE8 issues now been resolved, and would using IE8 instead of IE7 improve performance? I've not noticed my PC being slower, but maybe it could be faster without my realizing it. Are any here using IE8 with or without issues?

[davexnet]

I don't like IE8 either and don't really use it. But it should probably be installed as it brings in many
new files and improved security. Once it's installed, give Firefox or Opera a try.

[bevills1]

I've used Seamonkey for years and only use IE when required by certain web sties or certain apps. Seamonkey is similar to Firefox but has an email client included in it.

[hello_hello]

I've only ever upgraded to IE7 as I never use IE anyway. A few times when installing XP from scratch I've attempted to upgrade to IE8 and it's always caused problems. Maybe I've just been unlucky. The last attempt was earlier this year. I can't remember what happened.... I think it was simply that IE8 wouldn't run properly, but I decided not to start out with problems so I wiped the drive and installed XP again while only upgrading to IE7.

I can't say I've ever experienced an "XP slowdown", but I've never, ever enabled Windows automatic updates. I only update Windows manually once or twice a year. Last time I installed XP (with SP3) from scratch though, there were over 100 updates and patches to be applied via Windows Update.

[nic2k4]

I think the reason they recommend to switch to IE8 is that Windows Update will stop searching for all the updates from the previous versions and that should relieve some of the burden discussed in the article. Anyone on XP and still using IE is just looking for trouble when HTML5 becomes the de facto standard. Beside to get hardware acceleration it takes a modern browser like Firefox and Chrome (and derivatives).

I've been an Opera user since version 5, but now that they've switched to the same engine as Chrome and dropped the mail client, I don't see the point of sticking with it.