[internet-explorer] Animated GIF in IE stopping

Building on @danfolkes' answer, this worked for me in IE 8 and ASP.NET MVC3.

In our _Layout.cshtml

<body style="min-width: 800px">
    <div id="progress">
        <div style="min-height: 200px">
        </div>
        <div id="throbber">
            <img src="..\..\Content\ajax-loader.gif" alt="Progress" style="display: block;
                margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto" />
        </div>
    </div>
    <div id="main">

<<< content here >>> ...

<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">
    function ShowThrobber() {
        $('#main').hide();
        $('#progress').show();
        // Work around IE bug which freezes gifs
        if (navigator.appName == 'Microsoft Internet Explorer') {
            // Work around IE bug which freezes gifs
            $("#throbber").html('<img src="../../Content/ajax-loader.gif" alt="Progress" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto"/>');
         }
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">
    function HideThrobber() {
        $('#main').show();
        $('#progress').hide();
    }
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">
    $(document).ready(function () {
        HideThrobber();
    });
</script>

And in our navigation links:

<input type="submit" value="Finish" class="submit-link" onclick="ShowThrobber()"/>

or

@Html.ActionLink("DoSometthing", "MyController", new { Model.SomeProperty }, new { onclick = "ShowThrobber()" })