Does Internet Explorer peg your CPU, rendering your computer useless until you end the process with Task Manager? Or does it crash repeatedly? There’s an easy way to find the culprit. Open Internet Options in the Control Panel. On the Advanced tab, hit the Reset button near the bottom. This will default your browser to its original state.

Chances are good that somewhere along the lines, a plugin or add-on was installed and is the cause for your troubles. Thus, you can enable add-ons one by one again (or not at all) to find the source of the problem. IE is generally stable without 3rd party software, with the exception of apps from Google, Sun, Adobe, etc.

Unfortunately, Microsoft is not regularly developing IE. At this time, only security fixes and bandaids are periodically released. Alternately, you may wish to use a browser that’s lightweight, more fun, standards compliant, significantly more secure (i.e. not vulnerable to ActiveX controls or VB script), and very well respected. Get a real browser. .