I decided to be brave today and give IE8 another spin on my computer. This time though, I went to FileHippo and I made sure that I downloaded the IE8 version that said it was for XP. I downloaded IE8, and I installed it and restarted my computer. The first thing I noticed was that my boot time wasn't a crawl like it was when I had installed IE8 previously. Then, after I had booted up, I noticed that my programs took their usual time to open, and previously when I had IE8 installed, it seemed like programs took forever to run. To make sure IE8 wasn't slowing up my system, I opened it up. It opened up quickly as it always does, but during my previous IE8 installation, it took very long to open. I also restarted my computer again to make sure it wasn't just a random incident, and it wasn't. So, after reinstalling IE8, I haven't had any slowdowns on my computer of any type. I'm not sure what caused this change, but I'm thinking it was because I downloaded the IE8 version from FileHippo that specifically says it's for XP. During my previous IE8 installation, I may have had the Vista version of IE8 installed, and because it was not designed to work on XP, it caused all the slowdowns. To test my theory, if other people who've had slowdowns with IE8 on XP could test out IE8 again by installing the IE8 version designed for XP, that would be great.

Here's the download link to it from FileHippo: http://www.filehippo.com/download_internet_explorer_xp/

I recently went back to IE8 too. I tried it a few months ago and got the exact same slow-downs as you. I don't think the issue is where you download it from though, because BOTH times I tried it, I downloaded it though Microsoft Update.

I tried version 8 a few months ago and experienced VERY slow booting and VERY slow loading of applications. I reverted back to IE7, and all was back to normal. After trying IE8 again last weekend, everything was still running at it's normal fast speed. I think Microsoft became aware of an issue with IE8 running on certain machines and resolved it on their end.

The fastest browser ever on my XP Home was Safari for Windows. I don't have it at the moment but it impressed. However some security issues developed at the time and Safari was warned against. So I uninstalled it. Haven't tested it lately. I run IE8 now. But it hangs a bit...

well..yeah.i uninstalled ie8..updates too..
run ccleaner,registry and file cleaner,then reinstall from filehippo..and yesh i think this version is cleaner,faster,plus using privoxy for adblocking.

I'll have to give IE8 another try then. I however wonder if Microsoft has patched something in the meantime to fix the definite crawl it caused on some XP systems.

I never have problem with IE8.No slowdown here and running well in my XP Pro SP3.

anyway,glad to know your fixed the problem,Ice.One thing I don't like IE8 is old fashion User Interface

IE8 security features alone make it worth installing compared to IE7.

The smart screen filter actually works very well.

The XP build from Filehippo is also running smooth on my system. I like the way the tabs look, but I'm sticking with Firefox as IE7 and above seem very alien to me anymore.

More than anything for me it's just a security/system update to just update backend files that many programs access.

Now if only I could install MSE to at least try it.