IE Slow Behind Sophos

Question

Hi everyone, 
 I have had an issue with IE on all computers behind our Sophos UTM box for over 2 years now. We simply accepted the issue and moved on. The issue is, when browsing to a webpage, IE takes forever to load! This issue doesn't affect any other browser but our tools require Active X's to work so we are forced to use IE. I have tried: 
 Turning off IPS 
 Turning off Web Protection 
 Turning off Application Control 
 Creating QOS Rules 
 Resetting winsock on our PCs 
 And many more things! 
 
 I've looked at every log possible and I cant seem to figure it out. Sophos has alot of great features, alot of which we use but this issue is starting to get worse and is going to force us to go with another vendor. The workstations we use vary from Win7 to Win8. Sometimes they have the issue, sometimes they don't. 
 We currently run IPS, Web Protection, Application Control. 
 IPS has never been messed with besides adding our networks 
 Web Protection has never been messed with. Runs in Transparent mode with no authentication and doesn't block on authentication fail 
 Application Control has been turned on and blocks windows updates (windows updates break our tools) 
 We also use the sophos AV included with the UTM. We keep the UTM up to date, 9.411-3 running right now. 
 
 I'm begging for help! I cant seem to find the issue! 
 
 Thanks 
 Brandon

bsloan9858 · Answer

Hello, 
 
 I did turn off "Automatically Detect Settings" under connections and LAN settings in IE. Not sure if that changed anything or not. I know before it didn't seem to have any affect with the Waiting for Page issue. I did follow that guide for the best case DNS settings and I had my internal servers where I should've have forwarders and vice versa. 
 
 After all seemed well, I turned IPS back on and we haven't had any issues yet *knock on wood*. I think it was a combination of the DNS settings, Web Protection settings, and IE settings. I wish I could say what exactly it was but I changed so much that I really can't say. I do know the issue persisted eve when completely disabling IPS, WebProtection, Application Control, etc. 
 
 So currently, WebProtection is running in transparent mode (our tools run in IE with a few active X's and don't behave nicely when forcing IE to go thru a proxy and UTM in standard mode). 
 
 Application Control is running, blocking all Windows Updates 
 
 IPS is running with all defaults. 
 
 Our workstations use our internal DNS servers to resolve them our servers use the UTM for DNS forwarding. The UTM uses Google DNS. 
 
 Our workstations all have Sophos Endpoint AV installed with web control active. 
 
 UTM is updated to the latest available packages. 
 
 I will be sure to update this thread if I come across a direct fix for my issue. Thanks everyone for you help! 
 
 Brandon