Use the Restart button every now and then ?
When you press the Restart button it actually turns off and back on. It needs some occasional real off/on cycles to make for the most efficient start ups building on what you use mostly, and puts their configurations and settings into the prefetch folder.

ShutDown is actually a type of hibernate in win8.

~fwiw efficiency
Significant for less carbon footprint and longer battery life.

Here is a link that might be useful: energy efficient browsers

This post was edited by mikie on Fri, Jun 7, 13 at 12:28

Thanks, I'll give that recycle a try. I did notice that when I "shut down" with the browser up a restart brings the browser back where it was active at shut down. This means some energy is being consumed when the computer is off. Of course on a desktop it doesn't matter much, on a laptop it runs the battery down. My W8 laptop is not a travel machine, so this isn't an issue, it is usually plugged in when not in use to recharge the battery.

I have used a "power off" a couple of times to "fix" the start up problem of some Windows Service not starting - forget the details, this was a subject of a post soon after I purchased this computer - one or you "good guys and gals" put me on to doing a forced power down to clear the problem. I mention here only in the possible link it may have to my slower W8 experiences.

I assume, and will try, a "restart" will not clear any browser information, just W8 housekeeping.

I assume your AV is up to date and you have run a spyware program recently

I downloaded Malwarebytes and ran its quick scan, nothing found and W8 shut down still much... much slower than when new, a couple of months ago. The speed is what was moving me toward being a W8 fan... but no longer? The browser still comes up faster than W7, a different slightly slower machine.

I have used Malwarebytes (only occasionally) mainly because it was highly regarded by some of the regular contributors on this forum. But, looking closely at a new download, I learn that the "free" version is really a "trial" and if it finds something wrong one has to buy the Professional version to clear the problems. Do I understand this correctly?

Yes, nothing is free, but some free software seems to survive by offering higher quality paid-for versions and advertisements.. even some contributions. But, the free anti virus I use is free and seems to stop most "stuff"... Avira is what I use and it is up to date as far as the Avira auto update is concerned. I rarely do a manual check on updates.

It seems I overlooked the June 9, reply.... or I didn't get one via email.

Jerry if you go to the Malwarebytes page and click the free link it takes you to Cnet where you will click on the free link on the extreme left side of the screen.

"Free" is still available in many places but we need to pay attention to avoid getting sent to the trial versions. Also watch when installing but I seem to remember there were no catches involved with Malwarebytes

Owbist, this is what I downloaded and installed yesterday:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware\mbam.exe"

So far it hasn't found anything wrong, but I haven't yet ran the full scan. If it finds something and fixes it, then I misunderstood something I read, or think I read.

I ran Malwarebytes both in the quick scan and in the full scan (took about 2 hours in the full case) and no problems were found, were not reported to me.

But, the delays appear to be gone, the shut down (the delay I most noticed) is again only a few seconds (5 or so) between the time I click "gateway power down" button and the "shut down" is offered.