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Calling all computer geeks!

R

Root 5

Nov 25, 2001
3,715
3,296
Ontario Canada
#1
I'm having trouble with pages loading & displaying properly. Talkbass doesn't always load properly for me.

On my email account, I often get a message saying I must update to a modern browser.

I am running Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 Version 2002.

I have Internet Explorer 8.

Is it my OS or my browser? Is it both?

Thanks.
 
#2
email account: sounds like gmail. Google hates ie8 and earlier.

install firefox and see if all your troubles vanish, no reason to stick with IE and you cannot update it in XP.

Chrome is also an alternative, if the firefox slow load time is bothersome for you.
 
#5
Root 5 said:
To be clear, I'm due for just an upgrade of my XP Professional?

Or my OS AND my browser?
Click to expand...

I'd say upgrade everything. If you're happy w/ your current setup, you don't need to spend much to get something newer/better. That link I provided will most likely be plenty. Upgrade your browser for now though... That will help you most in the short term. Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari... All are better than IE8.
 
#7
If you can get past the interface (or use free add-ons to get 'normal' menus back), then an upgrade to Windows 8 will do it. Win 8 trims a bit of fat out and will run on lesser hardware then win 7. If you have decent hardware that Win 7 is ok with, then get Win8 with a downgrade license and install 7 - the change won't be so dramatic.

note that with IE 10, there are still banks and other secure sites that don't like it. IE 9 is likely your best browser version if sticking with IE

i_got_a_mohawk said:
Upgrade your browser ..<snip> ..
Click to expand...

Can't go past IE8 on XP, if he wants IE then he has to upgrade the OS.
 
#9
Hi,

Microsoft will end support for XP in April 2014. I like XP like a pair of comfortable worn out sneakers that have been my favorite for a long time. But I've read horror stories about many zero day exploits that are waiting to take advantage of the unpatched vulnerabilities in XP. It would be best to upgrade your operating system from XP to Windows 7 or 8, if your hardware is 4 years old or less. If you have 5 year old hardware I would suggest a new computer.

In the meantime, Firefox is a great idea.

How many background processes are running on your computer? Let it start up completely. Before you open any programs press Ctl+Alt+Del and click 'Task Manager'. On the bottom of that window will be the total number of processes running. For WinXP I like to have 32 processes or less running on a well-tuned machine. 40 processes is OK. But the more processes running in the background, the less system resources available for foreground processes. It slows your machine.


Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff
 
#10
You should have IE, Firefox and Chrome all installed. Browsers are wacky now - they respond very differently to different sites. It seems to change weekly. I run online courses and the compatibility seems to change as fast as I change socks.

Many sites are IE-centric. Some work better with Firefox. Chrome is fast but not compatible with functions on many sites - you'll find missing buttons or functions that don't work.
 
#11
Pilgrim said:
You should have IE, Firefox and Chrome all installed. Browsers are wacky now - they respond very differently to different sites. It seems to change weekly. I run online courses and the compatibility seems to change as fast as I change socks.

Many sites are IE-centric. Some work better with Firefox. Chrome is fast but not compatible with functions on many sites - you'll find missing buttons or functions that don't work.
Click to expand...

The bane of my existence & yeah... Browsers are silly. Most of us (web developers) don't even worry about IE8 anymore because it doesn't support media queries and HTML5 (among other things) and building current, responsive sites with it is lame w/o shims and polyfills. Heck, Google just came out saying they don't support IE9 with any of their applications anymore.

Anyway, it's time to move on. New is good. If you're afraid of The Google (like I am) then use Firefox or Opera. If you love The Apple then use Safari. Whatever's cool as long as it's a current HTML5, media query friendly browser. :)
 
#14
Ubuntu has great out of the box hardware support, CentOS isn't necessarily bad, but Ubuntu's has been light years ahead of other distros I've used.

CentOS is great for businesses, CentOS is Redhat but it's been compiled from the source code they release to the public, Redhat/CentOS are very stable and secure.

Ubuntu is very secure as well. If I was to use it in a business setting I would use Ubuntu LTS(Long Term Service) they have updates for 3 years on the same version as opposed to regular release which I believe is......a year?

Anyways, Ubuntu is easier out of the box to get working than CentOS for a residential user, I run them both on my VMware server at the house for testing of various things, but I find for every day Workstation/Desktop use Ubuntu to have a better product out of the box, amazing community for support.


For server it could go CentOS or Ubuntu, would depend on what I needed to accomplish, what the software needs are, etc.
 
#15
Ubuntu is probably the best jump-in point for Linux due to support and ease of use. I would steer clear of the Unity version, but that may be fine for others. It seems to be a widespread gripe with the direction Ubuntu is taking though.

I'm currently using the main fork of Mint, and now that I think about it that may be easier to get into. I haven't used Ubuntu since the first Unity release though. KDE distros are nice as well.
 
#16
I am running XP and Internet Explorer 6 as I write this (old computer).

I think IE 8 is the highest you can upgrade to with XP. If you actually can upgrade to
higher than IE 8, that should help.

If not, try raising the security setting to high, and just enable the various settings, like
file download, as required. I seem to avoid a lot of problems like that.

With IE 6 and security setings on high, I can log in here, post replies, start new topics.
Some of the features are missing, but you can get by with it until you get the more up
to date OS and browser.

-
 
#17
megafiddle said:
I am running XP and Internet Explorer 6 as I write this (old computer).

I think IE 8 is the highest you can upgrade to with XP. If you actually can upgrade to
higher than IE 8, that should help.

If not, try raising the security setting to high, and just enable the various settings, like
file download, as required. I seem to avoid a lot of problems like that.

With IE 6 and security setings on high, I can log in here, post replies, start new topics.
Some of the features are missing, but you can get by with it until you get the more up
to date OS and browser.

-
Click to expand...

You're also liable to get a virus at the drop of a hat with IE6. That browser is 12 years old. If it were a child, it would have hit puberty. It's been around nearly half of my life. It's time to move to something else - if your computer will support IE6, then it can support something else!

XP was a fine system in its day but it has been surpassed countless times now by other OSs. It was released in October 2001 - that's a long time ago. It is set up to run you as Administrator by default and every program that runs has access to your Administrator privileges - in other words, it's a great virus attractor because it's so easy to infect.

As for Linux, if you're new to it I would advise Mint (based on Ubuntu) or Ubuntu. My personal favourite has always been Fedora but Debian-based distributions are the de-facto standards. The beauty of running a Linux distribution is that you can get full-features relative to the age of hardware. If you want to resurrect an old project box from fifteen years ago, there's a distribution that'll do it!
 
#18
DerHoggz said:
Ubuntu is probably the best jump-in point for Linux due to support and ease of use. I would steer clear of the Unity version, but that may be fine for others. It seems to be a widespread gripe with the direction Ubuntu is taking though.

I'm currently using the main fork of Mint, and now that I think about it that may be easier to get into. I haven't used Ubuntu since the first Unity release though. KDE distros are nice as well.
Click to expand...

Yeah we could probably do a ten part thread on Linux alone. I run dual Mint and Win 7.
OP get Firefox and most of your troubles should go away.

Then save up and get a new computer. These days that's cheaper in many cases than an OS upgrade and everything will be cleaner/faster with thwarting new machine.
 

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