Major system problems gone after stopped using IE (WXP-Pro)

[jmagecko]

Not trying to push anything on people...just letting you know my experience.

I had the latest OS and IE6 updates, and had tried re-installing as well.

I stopped using IE6 for virtually all my internet browsing, and switched to Firefox 1.5

Since doing that a few months ago, virtually all system problems I'd been experiencing disappeared immediately.

I suspect all it takes is not using IE. It probably doesn't depend on the replacement browser, unless the replacement is heavily based on IE engines.

I had been experiencing the following anywhere from within hours to at most a few days after booting the computer. After going to Firefox these ended, and my longest continuously problem-free run-time has been 25 days...and that only ended because I wanted to install new hardware.

Processes freezing

explorer.exe dying

Main tool bar disappears

Memory being taken and not released (some have suggested this is due to the way IE handles video files)

CPU % going to 50%+ and staying there until computer is rebooted. (see memory issue)

Unable to start Task Manager using any method


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Edited to add:
It's the best of both worlds.
You can use Firefox and IE6 simultaneously. You do not have to try to uninstall IE. You can still use IE to browse any webpages that are encoded to work only with IE if you absolutely have no choice.<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by jmagecko on 09/06/06 10:06.</FONT></P>

[motoflop]

Your symptoms indicates that your computer is infected with spyware, especially if IE causes problems but other browsers don't. IE works perfectly when there are no spyware infections. So I recommed you to perform full spyware scan and clean all parasites and your IE will soon work fine again.

[jmagecko]

Sorry. It's clean as possible. The problem existed from the moment I started using IE on a brand new machine with WinXP Pro

I also use multiple commercial and non-commercial advanced spyware, AV, etc. detection and removal programs. I also perform regular scans from a non-OS boot to catch those types as well. I also perform manual searches for some of the more elusive registry embedded identifiers.

In addition, some of these problems have been identified by others (including Microsoft) as associated specifically with IE6.

[trents]

I too, have found IE6 to be problmatic. I use FF instead now and only use IE6 on my two home computers when a web site requires ActiveX. What little I've used of it, IE7 seems to be more stable and even quicker than IE6. Also, I'm currently evaluating Opera and like what I see so far. It's mail program user interface leaves something to be desired, however.

Steve