This is one problem I’ve been experiencing on my laptop for a long time. I have no problems signing in to Gmail and opening any mails in Internet Explorer. However, whenever I wanted to scroll down or up, Internet Explorer will hang for a few seconds and it will also take up 99% of the CPU usage. I never really cared about it because I am a Firefox user and Firefox don’t have that problem.

I do use Internet Explorer once in a while to check my other Gmail account as I don’t want to mess up my Firefox cookies. Finally I got fed up of the problem and I tried to look for the cause of the problem. At first I thought maybe this is could be a way Google is supporting Firefox but this problem only happens in my laptop and not at desktop. That gives me an idea that this problem is not caused by Gmail but by my Internet Explorer browser.


Before fixing anything on Internet Explorer, I noticed that I am able to revert back to the old version of Gmail by clicking Older Version hyperlink at the top right after logging in. The old version is meant for people with slow computer or internet connection so you can load Gmail faster.

Using the old version of Gmail solved the problem! Do take note that changing your Gmail to old version is not a permanent setting. Every time you log in back, you’ll have to manually click the Old Version hyperlink again if you want to use the old version. Although I found a solution, I am still not convinced that this is Gmail’s compatibility problem with Internet Explorer nor my laptop is slow to handle Gmail 2.0 (My laptop has 2GB of memory). I made sure the Internet Explorer at my laptop has the latest version and also all hotfixes installed but problem still exist. I figured that it could be Internet Explorer add-ons or plugins that is causing gmail slow problem. I open up Internet Explorer, went to Tools > Manage Add-ons > Enable or Disable Add-ons… I noticed that there were a few third party add-ons installed by FlashGet, FlashFXP, OrbitDownloader and Java. I tried disabling one by one add-ons and finally found that the culprit is FlashGet.

At first I ran FlashGet and went to Tools > Options > Monitor and uncheck Internet Explorer at Browser Clicks section.

By right disabling this feature should disable FlashGet integration with Internet Explorer but IE add-on’s window still shows that the add-on is loaded and it did not fix Gmail problem. Since this solution did not fix the problem, I had to manually disable the add-ons from Internet Explorer.

Run Internet Explorer, go to Tools > Manage Add-ons > Enable or Disable Add-ons… Select the following add-on name FGCatchUrl, FlashGet, FlashGet GetFlash Class and click Disable. Click OK and restart Internet Explorer. That should fix Gmail hang in Internet Explorer problem.