Internet Explorer 8 Crashes

Why Does Internet Explorer 8 Crash All The Time?

Anything designed to be perfectly safe is perfectly unusable and no fun at all. Witness any poor kid locked up in all the head, wrist, elbow, knee, chest, ankle, groin and other body armor recommended by the National Safety Council for skateboarders. He can't move freely. He is sure to wipe out, and the other kids will laugh at him.

The same thing seems to happening with Internet Explorer 8. Lots of people are experiencing browser crashes and freeze-ups that didn't happen with earlier IE versions.

Deserved or not, Microsoft has a poor reputation for software security. It's no secret that hackers frequently exploit Windows and other MS products to get at users' personal information, deliver malware, and cause all sorts of mischief. I won't debate whether MS software is "leakier" or less secure than other software. It's enough to point out that it's the most widely used software, and that makes its enormous user base very attractive to bad guys. No wonder there are more attacks designed for MS software than for other platforms.

The good news is that Microsoft finally got tired of all the security criticism and set out to drastically increase the security of its products, including Internet Explorer. The bad news: that's when IE started crashing regularly.

There are many things IE 8 won't let you do, by its default security settings. Automatically download ActiveX scripts is one of them. Unfortunately, the IE code for handling such blocked actions seems to be lacking, causing IE to crash or freeze as often as not. One solution is to loosen IE's security strangehold. Take off some of that cumbersome, accident-causing body armor!

Disabling Internet Explorer 8 Security Features

First, turn off SmartScreen Filter, which checks the Web site you are about to visit against a list of "known" dangerous sites and tells you if the site in question is on the list. If it isn't, do you really think that makes the site safe? You don't need SmartScreen and it's another potential source of malfunctions.

Internet Explorer versions 7 and 8 enable "memory protection" by default, preventing certain online attacks that try to insert themselves into RAM but also blocking some ActiveX, Javascript, and other classes of perfectly legitimate software. Such blocks can crash IE. To disable memory protection go to Tools -> Internet Options -> Security and uncheck the Enable Protected Mode box. Then restart IE.

A related issue is the Data Execution Prevention feature, which gets turned on when you install or upgrade to IE8. Although it sounds similar, it's different than the Protected Mode feature in the IE browser. My article What is Data Execution Prevention? explains DEP and will show you how to turn it off.

Of course, turning off some of the security features that are put in place to protect you, can make your system more vulnerable to certain exploits. But you'll have to decide if a browser that works is better than one that's safe but crashes all the time.

Doctor, It Hurts When I Use Internet Explorer 8

I'll let you finish the joke, with a hat tip to Groucho Marx. Personally, I use IE only when I absolutely must. That's generally when I have to deal with a Microsoft-owned Web site that I really need for a brief, specific purpose such as downloading Windows updates or getting a tech support page. It's also necessary when using Microsoft Live and all the Microsoft products that require a Live login ID. Guess what? I don't even remember my MS Live log-in ID, and I seem to get by without those Microsoft products.

My recommendation is to use Firefox, with the IE View addon. IE View lets me open a Web page in IE with one click, in case it doesn't work right in Firefox due to lazy Web programming. If it's a site I will visit often, I can set IE View to open any page on that site with IE, every time.

Do you have something to say about IE8 crashing or freezing? Post your comment or question below...