Slow web browsing

I've noticed that web browsing, whether in FireFox or Internet Explorer, is
slower than under XP. I've even tested this using an XP virtual machine
under Vista -- pages load faster in the virtual machine than in Vista,
regardless of which browser I use.

Has anyone experienced this? Any idea why this is so and what can be done
to improve performance?

You can try disabling IPv6. See this article about it:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/com...uy/cg0506.mspx

I tried it, but it doesn't help at all. Also, I don't see how it
would account for the difference in running within a Virtual Machine
on Vista versus Vista, as a Virtual Machine is using the Vista-
configured NIC.

Okay, this has been bugging me so I spent the last hour working
through it and found the problem.

SpySweeper.

If the "Common Ad Sites" shield is enabled, web browsing Java-heavy
websites in Vista will be painfully slow. Disable it and web browsing
becomes lightning fast. Note, too, that Webroot claims that
SpySweeper is "Vista ready." I like SpySweeper a lot, and it's
infinitely better than Windows Defender, but this is a pretty
significant bug.

And another point: this isn't a Vista bug, but a third-party program.
Vista's working just fine.

Thanks for posting the answer. Other people have had difficulties with
the latest version of SpySweeper and not just on Vista.

One point I'd like to make about virtual machines, however - the virtual
machine is *not* using your Vista-configured NIC. All virtual machines
use emulated hardware that has nothing to do with the actual hardware in
your machine. So it would be possible for a vm to have a problem with
drivers for the emulated NIC. I think it is probable that you knew that
and I have misunderstood your post but I wanted to make that clear just
in case.

Again, I'm glad you got that sorted. Thanks for taking the time to post
your solution.

I thought the way Windows Virtual Machine worked was it set up an
environment for software that looked like hardware, i.e. it had registers in
the "right" places that hooked into the underlying OS, so that when another
OS was run within it, it appeared to that OS as if it was controlling the
hardware when, in fact, all it was doing was passing commands to the
underlying OS that, in turn, actually controlled the hardware. For
instance, if Vista was misconfigured and the network interface wasn't
working under Vista, it also wouldn't work in a Virtual Machine run under
Vista, even if the VM OS was correctly configured.

Is that wrong?

I had the same some of the same symptoms
(basically a poor to nonexistent web connection).

For me the problem disappeared when I went to control panel --> Device
Manager --> Network Adapters --> Wireless Adapter --> Power Settings and UNCHECKED "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power .

After that my connection was fine even after I re-enabled the antivirus.

Why it worked fine for almost a year and I could find no evidence of a windows update, I just don't know.