IE 8 seems to have a really difficult time (at least in XP) with Flash videos

[Random Variable]

Videos on Hulu are almost unwatchable.

 

[theprodigalrebel]

There's something weird about that browser. Scrolling long pages is jerky at best, Ctrl+Ting a new tab takes a little too long, switching between tabs has a brief but noticeably annoying delay...

 

[Billb2]

There is no browser worse that IE8 for flash.

 

[MrChad]

Latest Flash 10 installed?

 

[Billb2]

Google Chrome does flash better than any other browser.

 

[nordloewelabs]

the best way to deal with Flash in a slow machine is to setup the player's Playback Quality to "LOW" via right-click menu. this works on Hulu and several other websites. basically the user just needs to right-click on the video and choose QUALITY > LOW. the difference in picture quality is relatively small, but the difference in computer performance is huge.

but there's a little problem: web developers sometimes use Flash players that do not expose the "QUALITY" option on their right-click menu (YouTube's new player is an example). in such cases, there's no "straight-forward-n00b-way" to tell the video to play in "LOW" quality mode. however, for those who use Firefox and are acquainted with the Greasemonkey extension, there's a solution. the user can install a script named Force Low Quality Flash and get *most* Flash videos to play in "LOW" quality automatically. btw, both Greasemonkey and the aforementioned script can be enabled/disabled with a simple click. and the script can be configured to only alter Flash on sites specifically chosen by the user. for example, the script can be setup to only force "LOW" quality playback on videos hosted on http://youtube.com.

the Firefox-Greasemonkey method is great but does not work on all websites. for instance, it does not work on the History Channel website. and it doesnt work on Hulu anymore -- which is not a big deal since the right-click method is still available.

if anyone is interested in trying the "Force Low Quality Flash" script but does not know how to use the extension or install the script, let me know and i can try to post a little guide.