Increase the number of simulaneous connections in Internet Explorer In a support article, Microsoft says : "WinInet will limit the number of simultaneous connections that it will make to a single HTTP server. If you exceed this limit the requests will block until one of the current connections has completed. This is by design and is in agreement with the HTTP specification and industry standards. " So, by default the number of simultaneous connections to a HTTP 1.0 server is 4, to a HTTP 1.1 server is 2. To change these limits, use Regedt32 to navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\InternetSettings On the Edit menu, add the following REG_DWORD value names: MaxConnectionsPerServer - The number of simultaneous requests to a single HTTP 1.1 Server. The default is 2. MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server - The number of simultaneous requests to a single HTTP 1.0 Server. The default is 4. Exit. Reboot. You're on your own notice: Increasing these defaults is a violation of the HTTP protocol, and should only be performed if absolutely necessary. Internet Explorer will load pages much, much faster, but it will be non-compliant with the HTTP1.1 specification. If you employ this tweak, you'll be making your browser nonstandard. If you don't know what this is about, or realize what you're doing ... don't try this. Related links: Microsoft support article Q183110