Since when did web browsing take such high specs

[ric449]

When people say they want a computer for web browsing and emails etc, most people say anything will work. Now I see that is wrong.

Right now I am using this system:

Intel Celeron 466MHz
Integrated graphics (Intel 810 chipset)
192MB RAM

Browsing is bad. The Internet is full of popups, flash banners, mouseover images, and the green text advertisements. My computer gets brought to its knees by it all. Also, its not as if I can even install Firefox and use adblock since it takes more memory than IE, so browsing is still just as bad. If this is what it takes "to keep the Internet free", bring on subscription.

[neochivers]

use a pop-up blocker like the googlebar

[Floppyman]

I actually sometimes use an old PII 350mhz, 192mb machine on a cable modem connection when I'm at home for weekend from school. While the browsing experience isn't the most stellar, it hasn't gotten to the point where I can't use the machine. It's certainly true that the internet is becoming more rich in media each day and if you're viewing such sites often (flash, etc.), that Celeron or a PII may not cut it anymore. I agee though, like you mentioned, all the garbage out there makes things a lot worse too.

[ric449]

Already block popups, using the Googlebar.

Browsing is still possible as you said, but its definately not as fun as it is on the more powerful machine in the house. I have a 2MB connection, but it doesn't feel like that when I'm on this machine.

[Floppyman]

Originally Posted by ric449 Already block popups, using the Googlebar. Browsing is still possible as you said, but its definately not as fun as it is on the more powerful machine in the house. I have a 2MB connection, but it doesn't feel like that when I'm on this machine.

Yeah, I agree with you on that. I guess at that speed the slower latencies of the internal components really begin to make a difference. You'd no doubt be fine using a standard dial up modem.

[Byte 2.0]

sounds like you need to run spybot on your system and clear itup. Sounds like you have extra adbots running in the background as I dont' get anything like what you are getting.

[HAL9000]

All I can say is huh???? I've serviced many machines in the 300-500Mhz range and never had surfing or downloading issues unless they are bloated with spyware and browser add ons.

[Force Flow]

Originally Posted by HAL9000 All I can say is huh???? I've serviced many machines in the 300-500Mhz range and never had surfing or downloading issues unless they are bloated with spyware and browser add ons.

ditto.

Hardware-wise, the only thing that will hinder browsing is not having enough RAM in the system.

[David M]

ric, as force just mentioned, its the RAM. 192 megs is not enough. For WIN XP you want a minimum of 512 megs. XP is a RAM hog. 1 gig of ram is ideal. There is a difference between 512 and 1 gig of RAM..at least on my system.

[neochivers]

i have a dell xps that dose it ....... its is from 1999 runs at 500mhz and 256mb ram and it works fine for web browsing and emailing and even playing music

[ric449]

I have no spyware.

I am using Windows 2000, not Windows XP.

Maybe I am just used to better speeds. My other computer is much more powerful, and if it isn't the computers specs that are slowing my browsing down, maybe its because I'm using IE instead of Firefox. I never believed IE was much slower than Firefox, but if you believe my specs are fine then it must be the only explanation.

[David M]

When I switched from IE to Firefox, things ran a little faster for me.

[Force Flow]

The minimum amount of RAM I would put in a 2000 machine is 128MB.

Using an alternative browser will help with the pop ups and speed considerably.

I wouldn't reccomend opera in this case, because it tends to hog RAM if you have a lot of tabs open, and you don't have a lot of RAM to spare here.