I have an image gallery based on this jQuery plugin: http://jqueryfordesigners.com/demo/slider-gallery.html This works really well in Firefox, Chrome and even IE 7.0, but when I try it with more than 50 images in IE 8.0 the performance is incredible slow. Just hovering over the thumbnail brings the CPU load to 100%. At first I thought it's a Javascript problem, so I used the IE profiler, but the results were normal. Next I checked the CSS and finally found the cause: .sliderGallery UL LI { display: inline; } This gets the thumbnails to align horizontally. If I chance it to display:block, performance is fine and the scroller is still working but obviously it looks funny, because the thumbs are aligned vertically. My questions: Why does IE 8 have this problem with many display:inline elements What can I do to solve it I'll gladly provide more information if necessary.