Internet Explorer, every since Windows 98 was launched Microsoft has made us believe that this is something that Windows cannot live without, be it Windows 2000 or Windows 98 Second Edition – Internet Explorer is already installed with it. Whether or not it is essential is not what I’m going to talk about, I’m just here to show you how you can tweak this.

This guide has been prepared in Windows 2000 & Millennium Edition using Internet Explore 5.5 SP1, although if you have an earlier version installed don’t worry as the vast majority of this guide can be applied to pretty much every version of Internet Explorer 4.0 or greater.

Update

Internet Explorer is one of the most regularly updated Applications around. These updates generally take the form of security patches however & as such it’s in your best interests to get these patches.

You can check our OS Updates page to find the latest & most important system updates, including links to the latest versions of Internet Explorer & any available updates/security patches for it. You can also use Windowsupdate, CNET Catchup or ZDNet Updates to check whether your system has the latest version of IE & any other updates installed for it.

Troubleshooting

This is related to the previous section in many ways. Basically, download the latest version of Internet Explorer (As Microsoft do not support versions of Internet Explorer earlier than 5.0 anymore, nor will they release security patches for them as a result), this will give you all the latest updates (security/bug fixes & others) all in one browser without the need to download multiple patches for your current browser.

Although if you do wish to stick with your existing, earlier version of Internet Explorer then the 3 sites mentioned earlier will be able to detect any security/other updates you need to install. There’s also the Microsoft Technet bulletins.

Another problem that can be cause is that related to advert.dll, installed by many Adware programs. Should you ever find Internet Explorer crashing when you try load it, simply search for this file & rename/delete it. To remove Adware altogether (Highly recommended, although be wary as it may break some programs that require it), download Optout from GRC. This can clean your system of known Adware which in many cases can make your browser more stable.

Should you find these few tips fail you try the following. Click on Start, Settings, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs. Double click Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 SP1 and Tools (Select your version number/name as appropriate).

Internet Options

Click on Start, Settings, Internet Options. This is where almost all tweaks will be made, although you should note that many of the settings shown/listed here are only available in certain versions of Internet Explorer.

Select the General tab.

Home page. In this field you may enter the default website you wish to be loaded whenever you launch IE. You should select a webpage as your homepage, but that doesn’t mean you have to load it every time your start an Internet Explorer window. Using the tweak below you can load Internet Explorer faster & only load your homepage if you wish too.

Right click on your Internet Explorer shortcut & select Properties. Select the Shortcut tab then the Target field. Add the following into the Target field  -nohome, e.g. for most users there Target field will know read as follows;

"C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE" –nohome

Click Apply then Ok.

Temporary Internet Files. Click the Delete Cookies button to delete all cookies from your machine (NOTE – This option is only available in the Internet Explorer Privacy BETA). A cookie is a file created by a Web site that stores personalized information on your computer, such as your identity & preferences when visiting that site.

Selecting Delete Files will delete the contents of your Temporary Internet Files folder (Except for cookies that is). Now select the Settings button.

Ensure you have Every visit to the page selected for Check for newer versions of stored pages. This will ensure you do not have older versions of webpages when you revisit sites.

By default your Temporary Internet Files folder may be set unnecessarily high. You can enter in a lower number for the maximum size in the field provided, when this limit is reached the old contents are removed. Do not set this too low as loading files from this folder is significantly faster than having to re-download it. I’d recommend setting it to 10.

Using the Move Folder button you can change the location of the Temporary Internet Files folder to a different drive/partition or directory as needed. Change the default locations as you see fit. Select Ok once you have made your changes.

History. Use this field to change the amount of days that Internet Explorer stores the URL’s of visited webpages. This is of most use if you have the History tab enable in Internet Explorer, here’s the websites I visited today, as you can see selecting the website opens a sub list showing the webpages visited at that site.

Security

Now select the Security tab.

In this section you can change the security settings for the 4 different zones available. Although the only you should only be interested in really is the Internet zone. I’d recommend you select Medium via the slider bar available then make the following change in the Custom Level section. NOTE – This option below may not be available if you don’t have Internet Explorer 5 or later installed.

Allow paste operations via script. Set this to Prompt or Disable. Click Ok then select Yes when prompted.

For best security on the Internet however you should use also be using a Firewall (Can filter incoming/outgoing Internet traffic & warn of attempted access to your computer). Zone Alarm is probably the best software firewall available for most users & is available both Free & Purchasable versions also.

Content

Select the Content tab next.

If you’re a parent then the Content Advisor will probably be of some interest to you if you wish to screen any…. Questionable material that your children may inadvertently access while online. Select Enable if you want to enable this feature. Although I won’t be covering any more on that in this guide.

You can skip over the Certificates section if you wish as there’s nothing here really worth covering. Now hit the AutoComplete button.

In this section you can customize how the AutoComplete feature works.

Web addresses. Tick this setting to enable Auto Complete to display a list of previously entered URL’s when typing in a URL with a similar address (This list is obtained from your History), e.g. if I were to type in www.3dspotli, AutoComplete would display the following URL’s based on the address currently typed, removing incorrect URL’s as I type out the remainder. NOTE – You should also have Use inline AutoComplete Ticked if you wish to use this feature. From this list you may see the address you are looking to enter, so simply selecting it will save you the hassle of re-typing the address again.

That said, if you have your History stored for a long time (See the General tab) then enabling this may cause to much clutter as you have too many URL’s to scroll through. Untick to disable Auto Complete for Web addresses.

Content (Continued)

Forms. Tick this setting to enable Auto Complete in Forms. This is fairly useful & can save time having to re-enter basic details such as your Name, Address, etc. in many forms online. Simply click into a data field & a drop down menu should appear with the required detail in it. Untick this setting to disable this feature, this may be of some use on shared computers.

User names & passwords on forms. Tick this setting to enable Auto Complete for Usernames/Passwords. Similar to the setting above this will display a drop down menu whenever you click into a data field requesting your Username, e.g. The picture below shows what happens whenever I try login to a certain site’s news publisher ;)

Select the Username as appropriate from this menu & the Name should be entered into the field, along with the relevant password into the Password field. You’ll have to log into such areas at least once so this information can be stored however (You’ll be prompted to save the Password).

A sub-option available here is the Prompt me to save passwords setting. Tick it to be asked if you want to save your passwords for use when asked for your Username in forms (When the Username is entered, the password is also). Untick this to disable this feature, highly recommended if your computer is shared & you don’t want others to get access to password secured sites.

Unticking the User names & passwords on forms setting will automatically disable both of these features.

You can empty (Delete) your existing Forms & Passwords data by selecting the appropriate Clear button.

Connections

This tab has been fairly well covered in our Modem tweak guides, although you won’t really need to go near this unless you are having certain connection issues. You can find links to our 3 Modem guides on this page. These will cover this tab in more detail.

Programs

Now select the Programs tab.

This section contains information relating to the programs to be used for different Internet related services. Using the drop down menu select the program you wish to use for a given task, e.g. for E-mail you may want to use Microsoft Outlook (If installed) instead of Outlook Express.

Reset Web Settings. Click this button to reset the default Internet Explorer settings for your home & search pages, & prompt to make Internet Explorer your default browser. This only resets these settings if you have installed another Web browser after installing Internet Explorer & Internet Tools, & that browser has changed the default settings.

Advanced

Now select the Advanced tab. This section has been divided into multiple sections given the amount of options available.

Accessibility & Browsing

These sections are the first 2 sections of the Advanced settings tab. Options available being as follows.

Always expand ALT text for images. You can ignore this setting if Show pictures is Ticked (See Multimedia section). If that setting is Unticked then Ticking this setting will have the effect of increasing the image size for any ALT text.

Move system caret with focus/selection changes. This setting is only really needed if you are using Accessibility Aids. If you use such Aids then Tick this setting, otherwise leave it Unticked.

Always send URLs as UTF-8. Ticking this setting will enable you to use URL’s containing characters from foreign language. Untick this setting to disable this feature. There’s no real need to disable this feature.

Automatically check for Internet Explorer updates. If you Tick this setting IE will automatically check for an updated version of IE for download & if detected you will have the option to download it. I’d recommend leaving this Unticked unless you rarely check your system for updateable components. NOTE – This will not find updates such as security patches.

Close unused folders in History & Favorites. When Ticked Internet Explorer will automatically close any opened Favorites or History folders when you open a new one. Untick this setting to disable this setting, this way such folders will only close when you decide to close them.

Disable script debugging. Tick this setting to disable the installed Script debugger. This would be the recommend setting for most users. Only those testing out webpages/scripts they have in their website should Untick this setting, to enable to the installed Script debugger for troubleshooting purposes.

Display a notification about every script error. Untick this setting to disable notification of script errors in webpages. This would be the recommend setting for most users. Only those testing out webpages/scripts they have in their website should Tick this setting to enable this feature for troubleshooting purposes.

Enable folder view for FTP sites. This setting can be used to toggle on/off the way in which FTP sites are viewed in Internet Explorer. When Ticked it is displayed in a similar way to Windows Explorer (e.g. Clicking on a folder will open a new window displaying the contents of this, & so on). Unticking this setting will display the contents of such FTP sites in a fashion similar to the way webpages are viewed (e.g. Clicking on a folder will open the folder contents in the same window, much like clicking a link on a webpage will). I’d recommend Unticking this setting as the Folder view is a lot slower & more awkward than the regular view mode.

That said, if you are going to navigate FTP’s then an FTP client would be far better. I can highly recommend SmartFTP, it’s small, it’s free, it’s stable & it’s as simple to use as Windows Explorer is.

Advanced (Continued)

Enable offline items to be synchronized on a schedule. Assuming you have offline items synchronized to be downloaded/updated according to a schedule you have setup (Start, Programs, Accessories, Synchronize) then you should Tick this setting. If you have no items synchronized then you may as well leave it Unticked.

Enable page transitions. When Ticked Internet Explorer should fade out of, & into a webpage you are loading. I’d recommend Unticking this setting as it serves no real useful purpose.

Enable Personalized Favorites Menu. Tick this setting to enable the use of a Personalised favourites menu. When enabled the most recently visited websites at visible, while others aren’t displayed unless you click the down arrow. Below is a shot of what it looks like.

Personally I find this unnecessary & I’d recommend Unticking this setting to disable this feature, although it may be useful for those with a large amount of Favorites, in which case you should probably separate your links into different folders on the Favorites menu.

Notify when downloads complete. When Ticked an Internet Explorer download will display that the download is complete, along with time taken & average download speed. When Unticked finished downloads will automatically close. This setting is also available when you download a file via Internet Explorer as shown below.

You can Tick/Untick the setting here also, with the same effect as setting it in Internet Options. I’d recommend Ticking this as it is a useful way to gauge your Internet connections speed.

Reuse windows for launching shortcuts. When Ticked the current, i.e. last one viewed, Internet Explorer window will be used for launching hyperlinks to a website. E.g. If you click a hyperlink in an Outlook Express email, the website will load in the last Internet Explorer windows you viewed, or launch a new one if none are open. When Unticked a new Internet Explorer window will be opened.

Show friendly HTTP error messages. When Ticked Internet Explorer will display more detailed description of any errors (& potential solutions) when you have failed to connect to a website. E.g. the shot below is that of a Friendly error message displayed, & potential solutions, when I failed to connect to a website;

When Unticked Internet Explorer will simply display an error code & the name of the error. I’d recommend leaving this Ticked.

Advanced (Continued)

Show Go button in Address bar. Tick this setting to enable the display of the Go button besides the Address bar. If you wish you can now press the Go button instead of hitting the ENTER key to load the website typed into the Address bar. This is fairly pointless though (If you go to the bother of typing the address the hitting ENTER isn’t really an inconvenience). I’d recommend leaving this setting Unticked.

Show Internet Explorer on the desktop. Tick this setting to place a shortcut for IE on the Windows desktop. Unticking this setting will remove the desktop icon (You may need to refresh the desktop to remove it). I’d recommend leaving this setting Unticked.

Underline links. This setting controls how hyperlinks are viewed in Internet Explorer. 3 options are available, & they are as follows.

• Always. Select this option to have all hyperlinks on a webpage underlined. This will give maximum visibility of any links on a webpage. This can make some webpages look a bit ugly however.
• Hover. Select this option to have hyperlinks on a webpage underlined when your mouse pointer moves over a link. This will give maximum visibility of any links on a webpage. This gives a nice trade-off between appearance & link visibility.
• Never. Select this option to never have hyperlinks on a webpage underlined. You will be able to tell whenever you are over a hyperlink as the URL will be displayed in the Status bar of Internet Explorer (Bottom Left) &/or the mouse pointer icon will change appearance.

I’d recommend selecting Hover for this setting.

Use inline AutoComplete. Tick this to enable inline Auto Complete. When enabled a list of previously entered URL’s are displayed when typing in a URL with a similar address (This list is obtained from your History), e.g. if I were to type in www.3dspotli, AutoComplete would display the following URL’s based on the address currently typed, removing incorrect URL’s as I type out the remainder. Untick to disable inline Auto Complete for Web addresses.

Use Passive FTP for compatibility with some firewalls & DSL modems. Tick this setting to enable passive FTP mode. This mode is more secure (As your IP address is not requested), although should you have problems connecting to some FTP sites than try Unticking this setting. For best security leave this setting Ticked.

HTTP 1.1 settings, Microsoft VM, Multimedia & Printing

Use HTTP 1.1. Tick this setting to enable the use of HTTP 1.1 when you are connected to the Internet. Untick this setting should you have difficulties connecting to websites.

Use HTTP 1.1 through proxy connections. Tick this setting to enable the use of HTTP 1.1 when you are connected to the Internet via a proxy connection. Untick this setting should you have difficulties connecting to websites or aren’t using a proxy server.

Java console enabled. Much like the Disable script debugging setting, you should only need to Tick this setting you are testing out java applets/programs in your website for troubleshooting purposes. All others should leave this Unticked.

Java logging enabled. Tick this to enable the logging of any java related use on your system. Untick this setting to disable this logging. I’d recommend leaving this setting Unticked unless you actually need to keep a log of such activity (& view it).

JIT compiler for virtual machine enabled. When Ticked any Java applets are run using the Microsoft Java VM. This shouldn’t really be a problem unless you are running a non-Microsoft Operating System, e.g. Mac. Should you have problems with Java applets in Internet Explorer, try Unticking this setting.

Always show Internet Explorer (5.0 or later) Radio toolbar. This setting is fairly self-explanatory, Tick it to display the Radio toolbar & vice versa. Leave this setting Unticked if you don’t intend to use the Radio feature, it will increase the visible area in Internet Explorer also.

Play animations. Tick this setting to enable the playback of animated images on a webpage. Depending on your system, animations can slow down the browsing of a site, particularly if it has a lot of animated content. Animations may still be viewed by right clicking over the image & selecting Show Picture.

Play sounds. Tick this setting to enable the playback of audio content on a webpage. On slower systems this can cause a lot of lag in browsing the webpage, & also adds to the load time. I’d recommend leaving this Unticked as a result for optimal browsing speed. NOTE – If you have third party Media players installed this setting may be ignored by them.

Play videos. Tick this setting to enable the playback of video content on a webpage. On slower systems this can cause a lot of lag in browsing the webpage (More so than playing audio content can), & also increases to the load time. I’d recommend leaving this Unticked as a result for optimal browsing speed. NOTE – If you have third party Media players installed this setting may be ignored by them, you can always right click & select Show Picture if you wish to view it.

Show image download placeholders. Tick this setting to enable the display of placeholders for images to be shown while they are downloading. This is useful if you need to check that all pictures on a website have loaded, or you wish to attempt to re-download pictures that previously failed to do so. Untick this setting to disable this feature.

Show pictures. Tick this setting to enable the display of all images in website. Unticking this setting will make web-browsing a lot faster, which may be of good use to those with very slow connections. If you wish you can load any images on the webpage by right click over an image & selecting Show Picture.

Smart image dithering. Ticking this setting enables the smoothing of images displayed in Internet Explorer. This can improve image quality, although may reduce performance slightly in webpages with multiple images visible. Untick this setting to disable the image smoothing, you shouldn’t really need to do this unless you are on a very slow system.

Search from the Address bar & Security

When searching. This setting controls the action to be taken when searching from the Address bar, e.g. typing in microsoft into the Address bar & hitting Enter. The options available are fairly self-explanatory so select the option you see fit at your own discretion.

Check for publisher’s certificate revocation. When Ticked Internet Explorer will check a Software Publisher's Certificate to see if it has been revoked before accepting it as valid. E.g. in the shot below a program I have downloaded (Selecting Run this program from its current location, it will not work it you select Save this program to disk) has been found to have no certificate & will not install/execute without my authorisation.

Untick this setting to disable this feature. For security reasons I’d strongly recommend leaving this setting Ticked.

Check for server certificate revocation. Similar to the above setting, Ticking this setting will enable Internet Explorer to check if a websites certificate has been revoked before accepting it as valid. As before, this is fairly useful for security reasons, although Untick it should you wish to disable this feature.

Do not save encrypted page to disk. When Ticked secured webpages are not saved in your Temporary Internet Files folder. Secured websites are those whose URL beings with https rather than http. This is most useful on shared computers where you should want to ensure no-one can access such data (e.g. credit card numbers). Unticking this setting will disable this feature, not recommended.

Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed. Tick this setting to have Internet Explorer delete the contents of your Temporary Internet Files when you close all Internet Explorer windows. This is fairly useful as a security feature on shared computers or just as a space saver for those who need as much free space as they can get. Untick this setting to disable this feature. When disabled your Temporary Internet Files folder will continue to grow in size up to the maximum size specified in the General tab.

Enable Profile Assistant. Tick this setting to enable the Profile Assistant, assuming you have a Profile (See the Content tab) this will allow websites which requests this information to access it. When Unticked you will manually have to enter the requested information.

Use Fortezza. Tick this setting to enable secure connections to Fortezza-enabled website. Although you need special hardware to take advantage of this (Fortezza Crypto card), most (If not all) of you reading this will not have the necessary hardware so leave this setting Unticked. This setting is really only of use for those reading this in the US Department of Defense (apparently).

The next 4 settings (Use PCT 1.0, Use SSL 2.0, Use SSL 3.0 & Use TLS 1.0) are in relation to security protocols used on secure website on the Internet, e.g. most websites use SSL for carrying out secure transactions, such as when you are entering your credit card number into an online order page. Personally I’d recommend Ticking all 4 of these (Use PCT 1.0, Use SSL 2.0, Use SSL 3.0 & Use TLS 1.0). If you have problems on some secured websites then trying Unticking all but Use SSL 2.0 (As all secured websites support this).

Warn about invalid site certificates. When Ticked Internet Explorer will display a warning message if the website address in a sites security certificate is invalid, a useful security feature. Untick this setting to disable this feature.

Warn about changing between secure & not secure mode. When this setting is Ticked a warning message is displayed when changing from Secure to Unsecure internet connections. This is probably of most use when shopping/purchasing goods online & you want to ensure that you are on a secure webpage when giving credit card details & so on. Leave this setting Unticked if this feature is of no use to you.

Toolbar setup & positioning

The Toolbars in Internet Explorer contains all the necessary tabs for using Internet Explorer effectively. Right click on the Toolbar (Up next to the standard button, File, Edit, etc.). Here you can choose the basic tabs to be displayed. Personally I’d recommend selecting just Standard Buttons & Address Bar.

You can customize the Buttons by right clicking & selecting Customize on the Toolbar. The following menu will appear.

Much like some other settings in this guide you really should setup this section as you see fit. Add/Remove any buttons as you feel necessary & change the icon size/text displayed as you see fit. Personally I use the following settings.

Text options. No text labels. After a while using Internet Explorer you should get used to what the icons represent, as a result you can disable the descriptive text, which will increase the visible area of the webpage window (The Toolbar becomes smaller).

Icon options. Small icons. Similar to the previous setting you can increase the visible webpage window by setting this to Small icons. Although for visibility reasons you may wish to enlarge them.

Current toolbar buttons. For the buttons visible themselves I only use Back, Forward, Refresh, Home & Search. Feel free to Add/Remove others as you need though.

Now that your Buttons are selected & tabs you wish to use are also selected it’s time to setup the Toolbar to give maximum webpage window visibility. Below is the Toolbar setup I use.

To change positions for the Toolbar tabs simply click on the little sidebars & drag them to wherever you wish. As you can see I only use 2 lines for my Toolbar, this gives a nice compact Internet Explorer, with the added benefit of a much greater visible area for webpages to be rendered.

Conclusion

There you have it, the end of our Internet Explorer tweak guide. Hopefully you’ve found it as interesting & helpful as I have in getting it altogether into 1 nice understandable guide ;)

Go to 3D Spotlight !