IE7 slow in connecting

Just this last couple of days, I noticed something that I haven't noted before when I started my Internet Explorer 7 (IE7). After IE was loaded, it just sits there blank, with the word connecting... while trying to load my homepage (which was www.yahoo.com). Eventually the homepage loaded but sure took a long time. Once the page is loaded, clicking any links within the page will load ok just like normal. The same thing happened when I open another tab window. I timed the whole process and it took around 90 seconds before the first page eventually gets loaded.

I searched on Google and found that I wasn't the only one encountering such problem. In fact quite a number of people reported the problem but I didn't find any satisfactory answer that would help resolve the issue. Someone mentioned about Add-ons which prompted me to investigate in that direction.

The first step would be to open up the Add-ons Manager. To do that, click Tools->Manage Add Ons ->Enable or Disable Add-ons

After some trials and error, first disabling all the Add-Ons and then re-enable each, one by one while testing before loading the next. And finally found the culprit to my IE7 problem. It was the Google toolbar add-on, for some reason is causing the delay in IE7 connecting to the Internet. Once disabled, IE would connect as normal. Now that I know it is Google Toolbar causing the problem, a quick search on Google Toolbar and IE7 of course revealed many pages of this issue too. That confirms my personal finding about the Add-On.

So here are the steps to disable the Google Toolbar add-on.

• Open up the Add-Ons Manager. ( Tools-> Manage Add Ons -> Enable or Disable Add-ons.)
• Make sure the Show: is displaying Add-ons currently loaded in Internet Explorer. If not, just click the drop-down button and select it.
• Scroll down the list to find Google with the Type as Toolbar. Click that to highlight it.
• At the bottom, click the disable radio button.

• At this point, you can also disable Google Toolbar Helper, and the Google Toolbar Notifier.. They don't seem to bother IE but since we already disable the Google Toolbar in the last step, then it makes sense to disable these two so as not to overload IE with unnecessary add-ons.
• Click Ok to finish the process.
• Restart IE. The next time IE opens, it should connect as normal now.