Internet Explorer Tips

Quick Tips

top

To turn your modem speaker off whilst dialling select Control Panel->Internet Options->Connections->Settings->Properties->Configure->Connection->Advanced and type atmo in Extra Settings. To customise the toolbar, right-click on the toolbar and select Customise to add or remove buttons etc. Use [F11] key to toggle full screen mode. If your title bar includes text from your isp then back up your registry then run RegEdit. Use Edit->Find to hunt down for the text and keep pressing [F3] until you find a window title value. Edit out the extra words. Go to File->Save As and Select 'Web Page, complete' to save a Web page and all it's images. To save in a single file select 'Web archive, single file' to save as a single file. To setup Internet Explorer to automatically disconnect after a period of inactivity go to Tools->Internet Options->Connections. Select your service provider and click settings. Under Dial-up Settings, click advanced then select both the Disconnect options. To clear the Internet Explorer history of visited sites select Tools-> Internet Options-> General and click on the Clear History option. When a page is taking forever to download all of its graphics, press the Spacebar to stop the graphics and allow you to read the text. Another trick is to click Stop and then click Refresh. Sometimes starting over will get you a faster download. To open a link in a new window hold down Shift key while you click on the link. This will open the link in a new (small) window. If you'd prefer not to deal with the smaller window, you can press Ctrl + N to open a new window and then click the link. To determine when the current web page was last updated type into the Address Bar "javascript:alert(document.lastModified)", without the quotes, and press Enter. A dialog box will open display the date and time of the last update. With the AutoComplete function active, many of the sites you visit that have forms will end up automatically filled in. If you don't want others using the computer to view your personal information, you need to turn off AutoComplete. To do this, choose Tools->Internet Options. When the Internet Options dialog box opens, click the Content tab. Click the AutoComplete button deselect "Forms" check box. Click OK to save the changes and exit the dialog box. Internet Explorer sorts favourites in chronological order. To store then alphabetically click the Favourites menu in the toolbar (not the Favourites button). Right-click a Favourite, then choose Sort By Name. That should do it, though you'll need to periodically repeat this process to keep the list in alphabetical order. To confirm that you are connected to a secure site a) the site address begins with https: b) a locked padlock icon is displayed in the Status bar and c) by right clicking on the page, selecting properties tells you whether the connection is secure. Go to Tools->Internet Options, Select the Advanced Tab and scroll down to Multimedia to remove sounds and animations from web pages. To have a blank home page select Tools->Internet Options, Select the General Tab and Click the Use Blank button. To save typing a .com URL enter the site such as 'google' and hit Ctrl-Enter. "http://ww" and ".com" will automatically be added. Use Alt and Left Arrow to go back one page and Alt and Right Arrow to move forward on page in your history. Use the History button to show pages visited and select the right button to delete individual entries from your history. If you install Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 and later decide that you never want to go back to Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.x, then you can free up about 10 Mg of disk space by deleting the older IE backup files. These are the files that let you recover your Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.x installation. To delete the files, click Start->Settings->Control Panel. Next, double-click Add/Remove Programs. Then click Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Tools. Finally, click Add/Remove->Advanced, and select the option to delete the backup. Note that 10 Mg isn't much space these days. So if you have any doubts at all, just leave the files on your disk. If you have deleted your shortcut to Internet Explorer simply open up Tools->Internet Options and select the Advanced tab. A little way down, in the Browsing section you'll see the 'Show Internet Explorer on the desktop' option. Check the box, select OK and it should return to its rightful place. Cookies are small files placed onto your computer by Web sites to keep track of various types of information. Some are completely benign, some are helpful, and others are invasion of privacy. How can you tell the difference? Right click the IE (Internet Explorer) icon and click Properties. Click the 'View files' button. Up will pop a list of the various cookies (and other files) that have been placed onto your computer as you have been surfing the net. If you see file names from sites you know and trust, leave them alone; the others you can selectively delete. Remember that some cookies contain information that may be helping you as you surf, such as loading up a page faster. Be selective when deleting! To change the program that appears when you select View Source go to Tools->Internet Options and select the Programs tab. When you pull down the HTML editor combo box you'll see a list of installed programs to choose from. When you want to go to your home page, you can click the Home button in the toolbar or you can press Alt + Home. There is one more way to get to the home page --you can type two periods into the Address Bar and then Press Enter. (Shades of MS-DOS where the double period got you to the parent directory.) When you attempt to navigate to a site, you often get the standard Error 404:Page not Found. However, if you'd rather see the actual error from the server in question, you can tell IE to stop showing you the friendly error messages. To do this, choose Tools->Internet Options. When the Internet Options dialog box opens, click the Advanced tab. Deselect the "Show friendly http errors" check box and click OK to close the dialog box and continue. Instead of going through all the steps to open Internet Options from the menu when you want to change your home page, just navigate to the page you want. Now, grab the icon in the Address Bar (at the left side of the URL) and drag it to Home button. When you release the mouse button, you'll be asked if you want to set your home page to this URL. Just click Yes and you now have a new home page. If you use IE's AutoComplete feature, you may eventually end up with a considerable amount of information, and a large number of passwords stored by IE. You may prefer to clear this information at times. To clear the AutoComplete information, choose Tools->Internet Options. When the Internet Options dialog box opens, click the Content tab. Now, you can click Clear forms and Clear Passwords to erase the stored data. If need to check something on your hard disk, or even run a program located on your hard disk, you don't have to leave the browser and open Windows Explorer. All you have to do is type the folder you want to visit in the browser's Address Bar and press Enter. As an example, let's suppose that you want to view or run a file in C:\MyFolder. Just type C:\MyFolder into the Address Bar and press Enter. IE 6 will take you to that folder. To run a program, just double-click its icon.

Expanding Cache Size

top

The IE Browser Cache stores web pages that you have visited, allowing them to be reloaded when you re-visit a web site instead of downloading then across the Net. When you revisit a page the browser checks whether the page has been changed since your last visit. If it has the new page is downloaded and replaces the one in the cache. If the page hasn't changed then the cache page is loaded. Selecting the Refresh button on the toolbar forces the web page to be downloaded. The size of your cache affects its efficiency. A larger cache means that more files can be stored. A small cache will affect browsing performance as the browser has to remove the oldest files to save newer ones. If this is happening it's a good idea to increase the size of your cache. However if your cache is too large searching through them can take enough time to reduce performance. Internet Explorer allows you to set the cache size in MB as well as a percentage of your hard drive. It's also a good idea to delete your cache occasionally. Select Tools->Internet Options->General to find the Delete Files option.

Remove Customisation

top

Many ISP's hand out IE as their default browser on their sign-up CD's. It is easy for these ISP to add their own corporate branding to the various graphical elements of IE. Here are a ways to remove these customisations. To remove the toolbar bitmap delete the BackBitmapIE5 string value under the following registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar. To remove the animated e-logo and restore the original logo delete the BrandBitmap and SmBrandBitmap string values under the following registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar. To either delete, restore the original value or enter your own value of the windows title change the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main. Another way to remove the customisations, that doesn't involve delving into the registry is to select Start->Run and enter 'rundll32.exe iedkcs32.dll,Clear' and click on OK. Enter the text as written as it's case sensitive. Sometimes Customisation disables the option to set your home page. To undo this setting go to the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Control Panel. In the Control Panel key there should be a value labelled home which is currently set to 1. Edit it so that it's new value is 0.

Keyboard Shortcuts

top

Use the following keyboard shortcuts to give your mouse a rest. [Alt] + [Left Arrow] - Back one page [Alt] + [Right Arrow] - Forward one page [Alt] + [A] + [A] - Add current page to Favourites [Alt] + [D] - Highlight the address in the Address bar [CTRL] + [F] - Find on current Page [F3] - Repeat Find [CTRL] + [A] - Select all text on current page [CTRL] + [B] - Opens the Bookmarks/Favourites window [CTRL] + [D] - Add current page to Favourites menu [CTRL] + [H] - Open the History Bar [CTRL] + [I] - Load Favourites Menu [CTRL] + [L] - Open Location [CTRL] + [N] - Open new browsing window [CTRL] + [O] - Open File [CTRL] + [P] - Print current page [CTRL] + [R] / [F5] - Reload current page [SPACE] - To scroll down a Web page

Setting Restrictions

top

Internet Explorer provides some security restrictions that can be useful for parents and administrators in companies. This involves amending the registry, therefore anyone capable of running REGEDIT can reset these settings. To set the restrictions, outlined below, run REGEDIT and go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Restrictions. If you don't have the last two keys, right-click the right hand pane and select New->Key to create them. Now right click on the right-hand pane and select New->DWord value. Choose one of the restrictions from the table below, and enable it by setting its value to 1 or 0 to disable it. Close and Restart Internet Explorer for the settings to take effect.

Restriction Effect NoBrowserClose Prevents the user closing Internet Explorer NoBrowserContextMenu Disables right-click Context Menu in Internet Explorer NoBrowserOptions Disables Tools->Internet Options (still available in Control Panel) NoBrowserSaveAs Disables File->Save and File->Save As NoFavorites Removes the Favorites Menu NoFileOpen Disables File->Open command and associated shortcuts NoFileNew Disables File->New or [Ctrl]+[N] NoSelectDownloadDir Does not display the 'Save As' dialog box when downloading a file NoTheatreMode Stops the user switching to full screen mode [F11]

Speed Tips

top

Choose the right time to browse as peak times mean worse performance. There's extra demand when after 6pm during weekday evenings. Browsing is a lot faster in the mornings. Pick a good ISP. With so many service providers currently available shop around, compare several of them to rate performance. Learn the tricks of your favourite search engine as time spend reading the help page can save you time and help you locate what you're after. To remove multimedia such as Shockwave and Flash goto Tools->Internet Options->Advanced and scroll down to multimedia. To stop the download of ActiveX controls got to Tools->Internet Options->Security and select Internet Zone, then Custom Level and disable both 'Download...ActiveX controls' option along with 'Run ActiveX controls and plug-ins','Font download' and 'Java'. To amend initial connection defaults to speed up logon time open the Dial-Up Networking folder in My Computer, right click on your connection icon and select properties. Click on the Server Types tab. Ensure that 'Logon on to network' is not checked, and that only TCP/IP is selected in the Allowed Network Protocols box.