15. Web Browsing with Windows 10
Internet Explorer or Microsoft Edge?
In April 2015 Microsoft introduced a new web browser for Windows 10, which it code-named Project Spartan. At the May 2015 Build conference, the company announced that this new browser would be called Microsoft Edge. From other Redmond rumblings, it seems clear that Edge is the future of web browsing in a Microsoft world, and although Internet Explorer will still be available for some time, version 11 is likely to be the last major update for this venerable program.
We’re of two minds about all this. On the one hand, a fresh, modern Microsoft browser is a welcome sight, given all the problems that Internet Explorer has had over the years, particularly with standards compliance and security. On the other hand, we don’t think Edge as it stands at this writing is a worthwhile replacement for Internet Explorer, at least for power users. Like almost all of the Modern apps that ship with Windows 10, Edge is a lightweight program that offers very few features and only a minimal set of customization options. It is designed for beginners and light Web users. If you spend a lot of time on the Web and demand a full-featured browser to handle everything the Web throws at you, we recommend you stick with Internet Explorer for now.
With that in mind, the rest of this chapter covers only Internet Explorer’s features and settings. However, you should know that Microsoft would prefer that you use Edge, so it has made it the default program for browsing links and opening HTML files. To change that, follow these steps:
1. In the taskbar’s Search box, type default and then click Default Programs in the search results. Control Panel’s Default Programs window appears.
2. Click Set Your Default Programs to open the Set Default Programs window.
3. Click Internet Explorer and then click Set This Program as Default.
4. Click OK.
Tips and Techniques for Better Web Surfing
Surfing web pages with Internet Explorer is straightforward and easy, but even experienced users might not be aware of all the ways they can open and navigate pages. Here’s a review of all the techniques you can use to open a web page in Internet Explorer (although bear in mind that many of these techniques require changing the Windows 10 default browser from Microsoft Edge to Internet Explorer, as we described in the preceding section):
Type a URL in any Address bar—Internet Explorer and all Windows 10 folder windows have an Address bar. To open a page, type the URL in the Address bar and press Enter.
Type a URL in the Run dialog box—Press Windows Logo+R, type the URL you want in the Run dialog box, and click OK.
Select a URL from the Address bar—Internet Explorer’s Address bar doubles as a drop-down list that holds the last few addresses you entered.
Use the Open dialog box for remote pages—Press Ctrl+O to display the Open dialog box, type the URL, and click OK.
Use the Open dialog box for local pages—If you want to view a web page that’s on your computer, display the Open dialog box, enter the full path (drive, folder, and filename), and click OK. Alternatively, click Browse, find the page, click Open, and then click OK.
Select a favorite—Press Ctrl+I to open the Favorites list, and then click the site you want to open.
Click a Favorites bar button—If you’ve displayed the Favorites bar (right-click an empty section of the title bar and then click to activate the Favorites Bar command), click a button to navigate to that site.
Click a web address in a Microsoft Mail message—When Microsoft Mail recognizes a web address in an email message (that is, an address that begins with http://, https://, ftp://, www., and so on), it converts the address into a link. Clicking the link opens the address in Internet Explorer. Note, too, that many other programs are “URL aware,” including the Microsoft Office suite of programs.
After you’ve opened a page, you usually move to another page by clicking a link: either a text link or an image. However, there are more techniques you can use to navigate to other pages:
Open a link in another window—If you don’t want to leave the current page, you can force a link to open in another Internet Explorer window by right-clicking the link and then clicking Open in New Window. You can open a new window for the current page by pressing Alt+F and then selecting New Window, or by pressing Ctrl+N.
Tip
You can also hold down the Shift key and click a link to open that link in a new browser window.
Retrace the pages you’ve visited—To return to a page you visited previously in this session, either click Internet Explorer’s Back button or press Alt+Left arrow. After you go back to a page, you move ahead through the visited pages by clicking the Forward button or pressing Alt+Right arrow. Note, too, that if you click and hold either the Back or Forward button, Internet Explorer displays a list of pages you’ve visited in the current session, as shown in Figure 15.1.
Figure 15.1 Click and hold the Back button to see a list of the pages you’ve visited in the current session.
Return to the start page—When you launch Internet Explorer without specifying a URL, you usually end up at MSN, the default start page (http://www.msn.com/; note, however, that many computer manufacturers change the default start page). You can return to this page at any time by clicking the Home button in the toolbar or by pressing Alt+Home.
Use the History list—Press Ctrl+H to open the Favorites Center with the History tab displayed to see a list of the sites you’ve visited over the past three weeks. (You can also press Ctrl+Shift+H to display the History tab pinned to the left side of the browser window.) Just click a URL to go to a site. The items you see in the History list are based on the contents of the %UserProfile%AppDataLocalMicrosoftWindowsHistory folder. See “Using the Handy History List,” later in this chapter, for more details on the History list.
Taking Advantage of the Address Bar
Internet Explorer’s Address bar (and the Address bars that appear in all Windows 10 folder windows) appears to be nothing more than a simple type-and-click mechanism. However, it’s useful for many things and comes with its own bag of tricks for making it even easier to use. Here’s a rundown:
Internet Explorer maintains a list of the last few URLs you typed into the Address bar. To access this list, press F4 and then use the up-arrow and down-arrow keys to select an item from the list.
To edit the Address bar text, press Alt+D to select it.
The Address bar’s AutoComplete feature monitors the address as you type. If any previously entered addresses match your typing, they appear in a list. To choose one of those addresses, use the down-arrow key to select it and then press Enter. The quickest way to use AutoComplete is to begin typing the site’s domain name. For example, if you want to bring up http://www.microsoft.com/, start typing the microsoft part. If you start with the full address, you have to type http://www. or just www. and then one other character.
Tip
You can also set up a custom URL prefix and suffix that Internet Explorer uses when you press Ctrl+Shift+Enter (instead of Ctrl+Enter). Select Tools, Internet Options, display the General tab, and then in the Appearance section, click Languages to open the Language Preference dialog box. If you don’t want Internet Explorer to automatically add the www prefix, activate the Do Not Add ‘www’ to the Beginning of Typed Web Addresses check box. In the Suffix text box, enter the domain suffix you want added automatically, such as .org or .ca. Click OK.
Internet Explorer assumes that any address you enter is for a website. Therefore, you don’t need to type the http:// prefix because Internet Explorer adds it for you automatically.
Internet Explorer also assumes that most web addresses are in the form http://www.something.com. Therefore, if you simply type the something part and press Ctrl+Enter, Internet Explorer will automatically add the http://www. prefix and the .com suffix. For example, you can get to the Microsoft home page (http://www.microsoft.com) by typing microsoft and pressing Ctrl+Enter.
Tip
If you have a site that you use frequently, create a shortcut for it on the taskbar. This is called pinning the site to the taskbar. The easiest way to do this is to navigate to the site, click and drag the site’s icon from the Address bar, and then drop it on the taskbar.
Some websites use frames to divide a web page into multiple sections. Some of these sites offer links to other websites but, annoyingly, those pages appear within the first site’s frame structure. To break out of frames, drag a link into the Address bar.
The Internet Explorer Address bar also doubles as a Search box, which means you can simply type your search text and then press Enter. To ensure Internet Explorer runs a search rather than trying to load a URL, either click the Search icon in the Address bar or add a question mark (?) and a space before your search text (you can press Ctrl+E to add the question mark and space automatically) and then press Enter.
Creating a Shortcut to a URL
Another way to navigate websites via Internet Explorer is to create shortcuts that point to the appropriate URLs. To do this, use any of the following techniques:
Copy the URL to the Clipboard, create a new shortcut (open the folder in which you want to store the shortcut and then select Home, New Item, Shortcut), and then paste the URL into the Type the Location of the Item text box.
Tip
Internet shortcuts are simple text files that use the URL extension. They contain only the address of the Internet site, as in the following example:
[InternetShortcut]
URL=http://www.microsoft.com/
If you need to make changes to that address, it’s possible to edit the shortcut by opening the URL file in Notepad.
You can create a shortcut for the currently displayed page by using the page icon that appears to the left of the address in the Address bar. Drag this icon and drop it on the desktop or on whatever folder you want to use to store the shortcut.
You can create a shortcut for any hypertext link by dragging the link text from the page and dropping it on the desktop or within a folder. When Windows asks you to confirm, click OK.
After your shortcut is in place, you can open the website by launching the shortcut’s icon.
Working with Tabs
Internet Explorer supports tabbed browsing, in which each open page appears in its own tab within a single Internet Explorer window. You can open dozens of tabs in each window, which makes surfing multiple sites easy. One of the nicest features of tabs is that Internet Explorer supplies each tab with its own execution thread, which means that you can start a page loading in one tab while reading downloaded page text in another tab. You can also specify multiple home pages that load in their own tabs when you start Internet Explorer (see “Changing the Home Page,” later in this chapter).
Opening a Page in a New Tab
Tabs are only as useful as they are easy to use, and Internet Explorer does a good job of making tabs simple. One way that it does this is by giving you a satisfyingly wide variety of methods to use for opening a page in a new tab. There are six in all:
Hold down Ctrl and click a link in a web page—This creates a new tab and loads the linked page in the background.
Use the middle mouse button (if you have one) to click a link in a web page—This creates a new tab and loads the linked page in the background.
Type the page URL in the Address bar and then press Alt+Enter—This creates a new tab and loads the page in the foreground.
Click the New Tab button (or press Ctrl+T) to display a blank tab—Type the page URL in the Address bar and then press Enter. This loads the page in the foreground.
Click and drag a web page link or the current Address bar icon and drop it on the New Tab button—This creates a new tab and loads the page in the foreground.
Click a link in another program—This creates a new tab and loads the linked page in the foreground.
Figure 15.2 shows Internet Explorer with several tabs open.
Figure 15.2 Internet Explorer’s tabbed browsing enables you to display multiple pages in a single browser window.
To close a tab, Internet Explorer gives you five choices:
Hover the mouse pointer over the tab and then click the tab’s Close Tab (X) button.
Select the tab and then press Ctrl+W.
Right-click the tab and then click Close Tab.
To close every tab except one, right-click the tab you want to keep open and then click Close Other Tabs.
Click the tab using the middle mouse button (if you have one).
Navigating Tabs
When you have two or more tabs open, navigating them is straightforward:
With your mouse, click the tab of the page you want to use.
With your keyboard, press Ctrl+Tab to navigate the tabs from left to right (and from the last tab to the first tab); press Ctrl+Shift+Tab to navigate the tabs from right to left (and from the first tab to the last tab).
Unfortunately, Internet Explorer has only so much room to the right of the command bar, so it can display only a limited number of tabs. Internet Explorer does reduce the tab width as you add more tabs, but the width can shrink only so far if the tabs are to remain usable. On a 1024×768 screen, Internet Explorer can display a maximum of nine tabs. If you open more tabs than Internet Explorer can display, Internet Explorer adds two new buttons to the tab strip, as shown in Figure 15.3. Click Scroll Tab List Backward to display the previous unseen tab, and click Scroll Tab List Forward to display the next unseen tab.
Figure 15.3 If you have more tabs open than Internet Explorer can display, use the double-arrow buttons to display the unseen tabs.
Using the Handy History List
You saw earlier (in “Tips and Techniques for Better Web Surfing”) how you can click the Back and Forward buttons to follow your own footsteps on the World Wide Web. However, Internet Explorer wipes those lists clean when you exit the program. What do you do when you want to revisit a site from a previous session? Happily, as you also saw earlier (in “Tips and Techniques for Better Web Surfing”), Internet Explorer keeps track of the addresses of all the pages you perused for the past 20 days, by default (see “Configuring the Page History” to learn how to change this).
The names and addresses of these pages are stored in the History list, and you can view it by clicking the Favorites Center button and then clicking History (alternatively, you can press Ctrl+H). To bring a site into view, follow these steps:
1. Click the day or week you want to work with. Internet Explorer displays a list of the domains you visited on that day or during that week.
2. Click the domain of the website that contains the page you want to see. Internet Explorer opens the domain to reveal all the pages you visited within that site, as shown in Figure 15.4.
Figure 15.4 The History list keeps track of all the web addresses you called on in the last 20 days.
3. Click the name of the page you want.
If you have a large History list, you might have trouble finding the page you want. To help, click the drop-down list at the top of the History list to display a menu with the following choices:
View By Date—Click this item to sort the History list by the date you visited each page (this is the default sort order).
View By Site—Click this item to sort by the site names.
Tip
If you want to revisit a number of sites, it’s a hassle to reopen the Favorites Center repeatedly. You can tell Internet Explorer to leave the Favorites Center open by clicking the Pin the Favorites Center button, pointed out in Figure 15.4. Alternatively, press Ctrl+Shift+H to pin the Favorites Center and display the History list at the same time.
View By Most Visited—Click this item to sort the History list by popularity, with the pages you visited most often at the top.
View By Order Visited Today—Click this item to show only the pages you visited today, sorted in the order you visited them (with the most recent at the top).
Search History—Click this item to search the History list. Internet Explorer searches not only the site and page names, but also the page text (via local copies of each page stored in the Temporary Internet Files folder).
Searching the Web
Veteran surfers, having seen a wide range of what the Web has to offer, usually prefer to tackle it using a targeted approach that enables them to find information quickly. This means using one or more of the Web’s many search engines. It’s usually best to deal with a search engine site directly, but Internet Explorer offers some default searching options. For example, you saw earlier in this chapter (in “Taking Advantage of the Address Bar”) that you can run searches directly from the Address bar.
Enter your search terms in the Address bar, and then press Enter or click Search (you can also press Alt+Enter to open the results in a new tab).
Tip
In some cases, you might want to search for text only within the currently displayed web page. To do that, press Ctrl+F and use the Find bar to enter your search text, and then click Next.
By default, Internet Explorer initially submits the search text to the Bing search engine. (The default search engine is also the one that Internet Explorer uses for the Address bar AutoSearch.) If you want access to other search engines—or search providers, as Internet Explorer insists on calling them—via the Address bar, follow these steps:
1. Click the drop-down arrow on the right side of the Address box.
2. At the bottom of the list, on the right, click Add. The Internet Explorer Gallery page appears and displays the Add-ons tab, which has links to various search engines, including Google and Yahoo!.
3. Click the link for the search engine you want to add. Internet Explorer displays the search engine’s details.
4. Click Add to Internet Explorer. The Add Search Provider dialog box appears.
Tip
You can change the default search engine at any time. Select Tools, Manage Add-ons, and then click Search Providers. Click the search engine you want to use, and then click Set as Default. Click Close to put the new setting into effect.
5. If you want Internet Explorer to use this search engine as the default, check the Make This My Default Search Provider box.
6. Click Add.
To use the new search engine, drop down the Address bar list to see a list of the search engines, and then click the one you want to use, as shown in Figure 15.5.
Figure 15.5 Drop down the Address bar list, and then click a search engine icon to use that service for searching.
The Favorites Folder: Sites to Remember
The sad truth is that much of what you’ll see on the Web will be utterly forgettable and not worth a second look. However, there are all kinds of gems out there waiting to be uncovered—sites you’ll want to visit regularly. Instead of memorizing the appropriate URLs, jotting them down on sticky notes, or plastering your desktop with shortcuts, you can use Internet Explorer’s handy Favorites feature to keep track of your choice sites.
Tip
The quickest route to the Add a Favorite dialog box is to press Ctrl+D. If you want to avoid the dialog box and place the favorites directly on the Favorites bar, press Alt+Z and then click Add to Favorites Bar.
The Favorites feature is really just a folder (you’ll find it in your %UserProfile% folder) that you use to store Internet shortcuts. The advantage of using the Favorites folder as opposed to any other folder is that you can add, view, and link to the Favorites folder shortcuts directly from Internet Explorer.
Adding a Shortcut to the Favorites Folder
When you find a site you’d like to declare as a favorite, follow these steps:
1. Click the Favorites Center button (alternatively, you can press Alt+Z) and then click Add to Favorites. The Add a Favorite dialog box appears. Alternatively, click the Add to Favorites drop-down arrow, click Add to Favorites Bar, and then skip the rest of these steps.
2. The Name text box displays the title of the page. The title is the text that will appear when you view the list of your favorites later. Feel free to edit this text if you like.
3. Internet Explorer enables you to set up subfolders to hold related favorites. If you don’t want to bother with this, skip to step 4. Otherwise, click the New Folder button to display the Create a Folder dialog box, type a folder name, and then click Create.
4. Use the Create In list to select the folder in which you want to store the favorite.
5. Click Add.
Opening an Internet Shortcut from the Favorites Folder
The purpose of the Favorites folder, of course, is to give you quick access to the sites you visit regularly. To link to one of the shortcuts in your Favorites folder, you have two choices:
In Internet Explorer, the Favorites list contains the complete list of your Favorites folder shortcuts. To link to a shortcut, click the Favorites Center button, click Favorites (see Figure 15.6), and then select the shortcut you want.
Figure 15.6 In the Favorites Center, the Favorites list displays the contents of your Favorites folder.
Tip
You can quickly display the Favorites list by pressing Ctrl+I.
Tip
Internet Explorer offers two methods for quickly adding a site to the Favorites list. Both of these methods work only when you position the Favorites Center on the left side of the Internet Explorer window. Therefore, before using either of these methods, you must click the Pin the Favorites Center button.
If the current page has a link to the site you want to save, click and drag the link to the Favorites list.
If you want to save the current page instead, click and drag the icon from the Address bar to the Favorites list.
If you added a site to the Favorites bar (pointed out in Figure 15.6), display the Favorites bar (right-click an empty section of the title bar and then click to activate the Favorites Bar command), and then click the favorite you want. Note, too, with the Favorites bar displayed, you can also add a site to it quickly by clicking the Add to Favorites Bar icon.
Maintaining Favorites
When you have a large number of favorites, you need to do some regular maintenance to keep things organized. This involves creating new subfolders, moving favorites between folders, changing URLs, deleting unused favorites, and more. Here’s a summary of a few maintenance techniques you’ll use most often:
To change the URL of a favorite, display the Favorites list, find the item you want to work with, and right-click it. In the contextual menu, click Properties and then use the properties sheet to adjust the URL.
To move a favorite, display the Favorites list, find the item you want to work with, and then drag the item to another spot on the menu (or into a submenu).
To delete a favorite, display the Favorites list, find the item you want to work with, right-click it, and then click Delete.
To sort the favorites alphabetically, pull down the Favorites menu, right-click any favorite or folder, and then click Sort By Name.
Sharing Favorites with Other Browsers
Many users like to run Internet Explorer along with another browser such as Firefox, Chrome, or Safari on their machines. Unfortunately, these browsers store saved sites differently: Internet Explorer uses favorites, whereas Firefox, Chrome, and Safari use bookmarks. However, Internet Explorer has a feature that enables you to either export favorites to a bookmark file or import bookmarks as favorites. Here’s how to do it:
1. In Internet Explorer, press Alt to display the menu bar and then select File, Import and Export. The Import/Export Settings Wizard makes an appearance.
2. Select Export to a File and then click Next.
3. Click to check the Favorites box, and then click Next. The wizard asks you which Favorites folder you want to export.
4. Click the folder and then click Next. The wizard prompts you to enter the path to the bookmark.htm file.
5. Type or select the path, and then click Export. The wizard exports the favorites and then displays a dialog box to let you know when it’s complete.
6. Click Finish.
Working with RSS Feeds
Some websites—particularly blogs—regularly add new content. That makes for a dynamic and interesting site (depending on the content, of course), but it does mean that you have to check the site often if you want to keep up with the latest information. You can avoid this hassle altogether by turning the tables and having the site tell you when it has posted something new. You can do this if the site supports a feature called Really Simple Syndication, or RSS, which enables you to subscribe to the feed that the site sends out. That feed usually contains the most recent data posted to the site.
RSS feeds are XML files, so you cannot read them directly. Instead, you need a feed reader program or website that can interpret the RSS content. However, Internet Explorer has this capability built in, so you can subscribe to and read RSS feeds from the comfort of your desktop.
Navigating to a site that has one or more feeds available enables the View Feeds icon in Internet Explorer’s Command bar. (If you don’t see the Command bar, right-click an empty section of the title bar and then click to activate the Command bar.) Pull down the View Feeds list (or press Alt+J) to see a list of the site’s feeds, as shown in Figure 15.7.
Figure 15.7 If a site offers one or more RSS feeds, Internet Explorer’s View Feeds button becomes enabled.
Why would a site have multiple feeds? There are two main reasons:
The site offers a single feed in multiple formats. The three main formats are RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, and Atom. Internet Explorer supports all three formats, so in this case it doesn’t matter which one you choose.
The site offers multiple content feeds. For example, some blogs offer separate feeds for posts and comments.
Select the feed you want to view, and Internet Explorer displays the feed content, as shown in Figure 15.8.
Subscribing to a Feed
Simply viewing a site’s RSS feed is only marginally useful. To get more out of a feed, you need to subscribe to it, which tells Internet Explorer to check the feed for new content automatically and download that content to your computer, which makes the feed part of what Microsoft calls the RSS Feed Store. (The default update schedule is once per day.) You then use the Feeds list in the Favorites Center to view the content of your subscribed feeds (see “Reading Feeds,” next).
To subscribe to a feed, follow these steps:
1. Display the feed to which you want to subscribe.
2. Click the Subscribe to This Feed link. The Subscribe to This Feed dialog box appears.
3. The Name text box displays the title of the feed, which is the text that appears when you later view the Feed list. You can edit this text if you like.
4. Internet Explorer enables you to set up subfolders to hold related feeds. If you don’t want to bother with this, skip to step 5. Otherwise, click the New Folder button to display the Create a Folder dialog box, type a folder name, and then click Create.
5. Use the Create In list to select the folder in which you want to store the feed.
6. Click Subscribe.
Reading Feeds
Because, by definition, a feed contains content that updates regularly, you’ll want to stay on top of your feeds and peruse them for new content as often as you can.
To view feeds via the Favorites Center, click the Favorites Center button and then click Feeds. (Immediately after you subscribe to a feed, you can also click the View My Feeds link.) Figure 15.9 shows a Feeds list with a few subscribed feeds. If the feed name appears in bold type, it means the feed has added new content since the last time you read it; feed names that appear in regular text have not added content. To be sure, you can refresh a feed: Either click the Refresh This Feed button that appears when you hover the mouse over a feed (see Figure 15.9) or right-click the feed and then click Refresh. To view a feed, click it in the Feeds list. (After you click a feed, Internet Explorer closes the Favorites Center. If you’re going through several feeds, be sure to keep the Favorites Center onscreen by first clicking the Pin the Favorites Center button.)
Tip
You can display the Feeds list quickly by pressing Ctrl+G.
Setting the Feed Update Schedule
Most websites that offer a feed will update it at the same time as, or soon after, the site posts new content. The frequency with which this occurs varies widely: once a day, once a week, several times a day, or even several times an hour.
By default, Internet Explorer checks for an updated feed once per day. Checking once a day is a reasonable schedule for sites that post new content once or twice a day or every couple of days. However, it’s not an efficient schedule for feeds that update much more or much less frequently. For example, if a feed updates only once a week, it’s wasteful for Internet Explorer to check the feed every day. On the other hand, if a feed updates many times during a day, you might not see a time-sensitive post until it is too late, or you might face a daunting number of posts to read. You can make a feed more efficient or easier to read by setting up a custom refresh schedule that suits the feed. Here are the steps to follow:
1. Click Favorites Center, and then click Feeds to display the Feeds list.
2. Right-click the feed you want to work with and then click Properties. (If Internet Explorer displays the feed, you can also click the View Feed Properties link.) Internet Explorer displays the Feed Properties dialog box.
3. Click the Use Custom Schedule option. Internet Explorer activates the Frequency list.
4. Use the Frequency list to select the update schedule you prefer: 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 4 hours, 1 day, 1 week, or Never.
5. Click OK.
Tip
If you want to use the same schedule for all your feeds, the easiest way to do so is to change the default schedule. If you have the Feed Properties dialog box open, click the Settings button that appears beside the Use Default Schedule option. Otherwise, click Tools and then click Internet Options to display the Internet Options dialog box. Click the Content tab and then click Settings in the Feeds and Web Slices group. Use the Default Schedule list to click the interval you want to use, and then click OK in all open dialog boxes. Note that this only affects those feeds in which you’ve selected the Use Default Schedule option. Feeds in which you have selected the Use Custom Schedule option are not affected.
Customizing Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer is chock full of customization options that enable you to set up the program for the way you work and surf. The rest of this chapter examines what we think are the most useful of Internet Explorer’s long list of customization features.
Controlling the Web Page Cache
In the same way that a disk cache stores frequently used data for faster performance, Internet Explorer also keeps a cache of files from web pages you’ve visited recently. The cache is maintained on a per-user basis and is located in the following folder:
%UserProfile%AppDataLocalMicrosoftWindowsINetCache
Internet Explorer uses these saved files to display web pages quickly the next time you ask to see them or while you are offline.
To control the cache, select Tools, Internet Options and display the General tab. Use the following buttons in the Browsing History group:
Delete—Clicking this button displays the Delete Browsing History dialog box. (You can also display the dialog box by selecting Tools, Safety, Delete Browsing History.) Make sure the Temporary Internet Files and Website Files box is checked, and then click Delete to clean out the Temporary Internet Files folder.
Settings—Clicking this button displays the Website Data Settings dialog box, shown in Figure 15.10.
You have the following options in the Website Data Settings dialog box:
Check for Newer Versions of Stored Pages—Check an option in this group to determine when Internet Explorer checks for updated versions of cache files. If you have a fast connection and you want to be certain that you’re always seeing the most current data, activate the Every Time I Visit the Webpage option.
Note
No matter which cache update option you choose, you can view the most up-to-date version of a page at any time by pressing F5 or clicking the Refresh button.
Disk Space to Use—Use this spin box to set the size of the cache as a percentage of the hard disk’s capacity. A larger cache speeds up website browsing but also uses more hard drive space.
Move Folder—Click this button to change the folder used for the cache. For example, you could move the cache to a partition with more free space so that you can increase the cache size, or to a faster hard drive to improve cache performance. Note that you must restart your computer if you move the cache folder.
View Objects—Click this button to display the Downloaded Program Files folder, which holds the Java applets and ActiveX controls that have been downloaded and installed on your system.
View Files—Click this button to display the INetCache folder.
Setting Internet Explorer Options
You had a brief introduction to the Internet Options dialog box in the preceding section. However, this dialog box is loaded with useful options and settings that enable you to control dozens of aspects of Internet Explorer’s behavior and look. These include cosmetic options such as the fonts and colors used by the program, but also more important concerns, such as your home page and the level of security that Internet Explorer uses. To display these options, you have several ways to proceed:
In Internet Explorer, click Tools (the gear icon; you also can press Alt+X), and then click Internet Options. Alternatively, press Alt and then select Tools, Internet Options.
In the taskbar’s Search box, type internet options and then press Enter.
In Control Panel, display all the icons and then click Internet Options. (If you’re using the Category view, select Network and Internet, Internet Options.)
Depending on the method you use, you see either the Internet Options or the Internet Properties dialog box, although they offer the same set of controls. The next few sections discuss the details of some of the controls in this dialog box.
Changing the Home Page
In Internet Explorer, the home page is what the browser views when you start a new session. The default home page is usually Bing.com, but most computer manufacturers substitute their own pages.
To change the home page, open the Internet Options dialog box (see “Setting Internet Explorer Options”), display the General tab, and then click one of the following buttons:
Use Current—For this button, first navigate to the page you want to use. Then open the Internet Options dialog box and click Use Current to change the home page to the current page. If you’d rather open Internet Explorer with a blank page, type about:blank in the text box and click Use Current.
Use Default—Click this button to revert to Internet Explorer’s default home page.
Use New Tab—Click this button if you’d prefer to launch Internet Explorer without loading a home page.
Note
If Internet Explorer currently displays all the tabs you want to use as your home pages, right-click the Home button and then click Add or Change Home Page. In the Add or Change Home Page dialog box that appears, activate the Use the Current Tab Set as Your Home Page option and then click Yes.
Internet Explorer also gives you an easier way to set the current page as your home page. Navigate to the page, right-click the Home button, and then click Add or Change Home Page. In the Add or Change Home Page dialog box that appears, activate the Use This Webpage as Your Only Home Page option and then click Yes.
Even better, Internet Explorer also enables you to specify multiple home pages. When you launch Internet Explorer or click the Home button, Internet Explorer loads each home page in a separate tab. This is a great feature if you regularly open several pages at the start of each browsing session. You can use two methods to specify multiple home pages:
Display the Internet Options dialog box and click the General tab. In the Home Page list box, type the address of each page on a separate line. (That is, type one address, press Enter to start a new line, and then type the next address.)
Navigate to the page you want to add, click the drop-down arrow beside the Home button, and then click Add or Change Home Page. In the Add or Change Home Page dialog box that appears, activate the Add This Webpage to Your Home Page Tabs option, and then click Yes.
Configuring the Page History
In the Internet Options dialog box (see “Setting Internet Explorer Options”), the General tab’s Browsing History group also controls various options related to the History folder (refer to the “Using the Handy History List” section, earlier in this chapter):
Delete—Clicking this button displays the Delete Browsing History dialog box. (You can also display the dialog box by selecting Tools, Safety, Delete Browsing History.) Check the History box, and then click the Delete button to remove all URLs from the History folder.
Tip
To change the size of the fonts Internet Explorer uses, press Alt+V, select Text Size, and then choose a relative font size from the submenu (for example, Larger or Smaller). If you have a mouse with a wheel button, hold down Ctrl while pressing and turning the wheel. This changes the onscreen text size on the fly.
Settings—Clicking this button displays the Website Data Settings dialog box, shown earlier in Figure 15.10. Display the History tab, and then use the Days to Keep Pages in History spin box to set the maximum number of days that Internet Explorer stores a URL in its History list. Enter a value between 1 and 999. If you do not want Internet Explorer to keep any pages in the History folder, enter 0.
Setting More General Options
In the Internet Options dialog box (see “Setting Internet Explorer Options”), the General tab also boasts four buttons at the bottom:
Colors—Click this button to display the Colors dialog box, where you can uncheck the Use Windows Colors box to set the default text and background colors used in the Internet Explorer window. You can also use the Visited and Unvisited buttons to set the default link colors. Finally, check the Use Hover Color box to have Internet Explorer change the color of a link when you position the mouse pointer over it. Use the Hover button to set the color.
Languages—Click this button to display the Language Preference dialog box, which enables you to add one or more languages to Internet Explorer. This makes it possible for Internet Explorer to handle pages in foreign languages. You can also use this dialog box to set up relative priorities for the designated languages.
Fonts—Click this button to display the Fonts dialog box, which enables you to determine how web page fonts appear within Internet Explorer.
Accessibility—Click this button to display the Accessibility dialog box. From here, you can tell Internet Explorer to ignore the colors, font styles, and font sizes specified on any web page. You can also specify your own style sheet to use when formatting web pages.
Understanding Internet Explorer’s Advanced Options
In the Internet Options dialog box (see “Setting Internet Explorer Options”), the Advanced tab has a huge list of customization features (see Figure 15.11). Many of these settings are obscure, but many others are extremely useful for surfers of all stripes. This section runs through all of these settings.
Figure 15.11 In the Internet Options dialog box, the Advanced tab contains a long list of Internet Explorer customization settings.
Accelerated Graphics
The Accelerated Graphics section has a single check box named Use Software Rendering Instead of GPU Rendering. Normally, you want to leave this box unchecked to take advantage of the hardware acceleration features of your video card’s graphics processing unit (GPU). However, if you’re having trouble viewing graphics on a particular site—particularly streaming video or full-screen video—you might be able to solve the problem by activating this check box to let the CPU render graphics instead of the GPU.
Always Expand ALT Text for Images—Most webmasters define a text description for each image they include on a page. If you tell Internet Explorer not to show images (see the later discussion of the Show Pictures check box), all you see are boxes where the images should be, and each box contains the text description (known as alt text, where alt is short for alternate). Activating this check box tells Internet Explorer to expand the image box horizontally so that the alt text appears on a single line.
Enable Caret Browsing for New Windows and Tabs—Check this box to switch Internet Explorer into caret browsing mode. You normally navigate a web page using the mouse to click links and scroll the screen. The keyboard comes into play occasionally for scrolling (with Page Down and Page Up keys) and rarely for selecting links (with the Tab key). However, many people find the mouse difficult to use and would prefer to navigate a web page the same way they navigate a word processing document: using the left- and right-arrow keys to navigate characters, the up- and down-arrow keys to navigate lines, and Ctrl+arrow key to navigate words (with the left- and right-arrow keys) or paragraphs (with the up- and down-arrow keys), and so on. This is called caret browsing (where caret is a fancy term for a vertical cursor).
Note
To activate a link when caret browsing, navigate the cursor inside the link text (Internet Explorer adds a box around the link text), and then press Enter.
Move System Caret with Focus/Selection Changes—Activating this check box tells Internet Explorer to move the system caret whenever you change the focus. (The system caret is a visual indication of what part of the screen currently has the focus. If a text box has the focus, the system caret is a blinking, vertical bar; if a check box or option button has the focus, the system caret is a dotted outline of the control name.) This option is useful if you have a screen reader or screen magnifier that uses the position of the system caret to determine what part of the screen to read or magnify.
Play System Sounds—Check this box to reinstate Internet Explorer’s sounds, such as the “click” that plays when you select a link and the sound Internet Explorer plays when it displays the notification bar.
Reset Text Size to Medium for New Windows and Tabs—Activating this check box tells Internet Explorer to return the Text Size value to Medium when you open a new window or tab. This option is useful if you find that you have to enlarge the text size for only a few sites.
Reset Zoom Level for New Windows and Tabs—Activating this check box tells Internet Explorer to return the Zoom value to 100% when you open a new window or tab. This option is useful if you find that you have to zoom in on only a few sites.
Always Record Developer Console Messages—If you’re a web developer, check this box to force Internet Explorer to keep a record of all output that it sends to the Developer console. If you leave this option unchecked, Internet Explorer records Developer console messages only when you have the console open.
Close Unused Folders in History and Favorites—When you check this box, Internet Explorer keeps unused folders closed when you display the History list and the Favorites list. That is, if you open a folder and then open a second folder, Internet Explorer automatically closes the first folder. This makes the History and Favorites lists easier to navigate, so it’s usually best to leave this option checked. You must restart Internet Explorer if you change this setting.
Disable Script Debugging (Internet Explorer)—This check box toggles the script debugger (if one is installed) on and off within Internet Explorer only. You should have to activate this option only if you’re a page designer and you have scripts in your pages that you need to debug before uploading them to the Web.
Disable Script Debugging (Other)—This is similar to the Disable Script Debugging (Internet Explorer) option, except that it toggles the script debugger (again, if one is installed) on and off within any application other than Internet Explorer that can display web content (such as Windows Mail).
Display a Notification About Every Script Error—If you check this box, Internet Explorer displays a dialog box to alert you to JavaScript or VBScript errors on a page. If you leave this option unchecked, Internet Explorer displays an error message in the status bar. To see the full error message, double-click the status bar message. Only script programmers will need to enable this option and, even then, only when they’re debugging scripts. Many websites are poorly programmed and contain script errors. Therefore, enabling this option means that you’ll have to deal with lots of annoying dialog boxes as you surf.
Enable Automatic Crash Recovery—When this box is checked, Internet Explorer attempts to reopen the current tab set if the program crashes. This is welcome behavior, particularly if you regularly have a large bunch of tabs on the go. You must restart Internet Explorer if you change this setting.
Enable Flip Ahead with Page Prediction—If you check this box, Internet Explorer enables its Flip Ahead feature, which predicts which page you are most likely to view next based on your browsing history (which, yes, gets sent to Microsoft for analysis).
Enable FTP Folder View (Outside of Internet Explorer)—When you check this option and you access an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) site, press Alt and then select Tools, FTP in File Explorer to display the contents of the site using the familiar Windows folder view. This makes it easy to drag and drop files from the FTP site to your hard disk, and possibly to perform other file maintenance chores, depending on what permissions you have at the site.
Enable Suggested Sites—When you enable this check box, you can click Internet Explorer’s Suggested Sites button to see a list of what Internet Explorer thinks are sites that are similar to the current site (and so might interest you).
Enable Third-Party Browser Extensions—With this box checked, Internet Explorer supports third-party extensions to its interface. For example, the Google toolbar is a third-party extension that integrates the Google search engine into Internet Explorer as a toolbar. If you uncheck this box, third-party extensions don’t appear and can’t display. Unchecking this box is a good way to turn off some (but, unfortunately, not all) of those annoying third-party toolbars that install themselves without permission. You must restart Internet Explorer if you change this setting.
Enable Visual Styles on Buttons and Controls in Webpages—With this box checked, Internet Explorer applies the current Windows 10 visual style to all web pages for objects such as form buttons. If you uncheck this box, Internet Explorer applies its default visual style to all page elements.
Go to an Intranet Site for a Single Word Entry in the Address Bar—When you check this setting, Internet Explorer treats single-word entries in the Address bar as intranet addresses; if you leave this setting unchecked, Internet Explorer treats single-word entries in the Address bar as search queries.
Load Sites and Content in the Background to Optimize Performance—When this option is checked, Internet Explorer examines the current page for links and begins preloading those linked pages in the background. That way, when you click a preloaded link, the page appears very quickly. This works well on a high-speed connection, but it can cause a slow connection to choke, so in that case you should uncheck this setting.
Notify When Downloads Complete—If you leave this box checked, Internet Explorer leaves the Notification bar onscreen after the download finishes (see Figure 15.12). This enables you to click either Run to launch the downloaded file or Open Folder to display the file’s destination folder. If you uncheck this box, Internet Explorer closes the Notification bar as soon as the download is complete.
Figure 15.12 When Internet Explorer completes a file download, it leaves the Notification bar onscreen to help you deal with the file.
Show Friendly HTTP Error Messages—With this check box enabled, Internet Explorer intercepts the error messages (for, say, pages not found) generated by web servers and replaces them with its own messages that offer more information as well as possible solutions to the problem. If you uncheck this option, Internet Explorer displays the error message generated by the web server. However, we recommend deactivating this option because webmasters often customize the web server error messages to be more helpful than the generic messages reported by Internet Explorer.
Tell Me If Internet Explorer Is Not the Default Browser—If you leave this box checked, Internet Explorer checks at startup whether it’s the default browser on your system and lets you know if it’s not. (Note, however, that this doesn’t apply when Microsoft Edge is set as the default.) If you have another browser set up as the default and you don’t want to be pestered with these messages each time you run Internet Explorer, uncheck this setting.
Underline Links—Use these options to specify when Internet Explorer should format web page links with an underline. The Hover option means that the underline appears only when you position the mouse pointer over the link. Many websites use colored text, so it’s often difficult to recognize a link without the underlining. Therefore, we recommend that you activate the Always option.
Use Inline AutoComplete in File Explorer and Run Dialog—Check this box to extend AutoComplete to the File Explorer Address bar and to the Run dialog box.
Use Inline AutoComplete in the Internet Explorer Address Bar and Open Dialog—This check box toggles the Address bar’s inline AutoComplete feature on and off. When inline AutoComplete is on, Internet Explorer monitors the text that you type in the Address bar. If your text matches a previously typed URL, Internet Explorer automatically completes the address by displaying the matching URL in the Address bar. It also displays a drop-down list of other matching URLs. When inline AutoComplete is off, Internet Explorer displays only the drop-down list of matching URLs.
Use Most Recent Order When Switching Tags with Ctrl+Tab—If you check this box, pressing Ctrl+Tab (or Ctrl+Shift+Tab) switches between tabs in the order you most recently viewed them.
Tip
When reading a web page, you can scroll down one screen by pressing the spacebar. To scroll up one screen, press Shift+Spacebar.
Use Passive FTP (for Firewall and DSL Modem Compatibility)—In a normal FTP session, Internet Explorer opens a connection to the FTP server (for commands), and then the FTP server opens a second connection back to the browser (for data). If you’re on a network with a firewall, however, it will not allow incoming connections from a server. With passive FTP, the browser establishes the second (data) connection itself. Therefore, if you’re on a firewalled network or are using a DSL modem and you can’t establish an FTP connection, check this box.
Use Smooth Scrolling—This check box toggles a feature called smooth scrolling on and off. When you check this box to enable smooth scrolling, pressing the Page Down or Page Up key causes the page to scroll down or up at a preset speed. If you uncheck this box, pressing the Page Down or Page Up key causes the page to jump instantly down or up.
HTTP Settings
The check boxes in the HTTP Settings branch determine whether Internet Explorer uses the HTTP 1.1 or HTTP 2 protocol:
Use HTTP 1.1—This check box toggles Internet Explorer’s use of HTTP 1.1 to communicate with web servers. (HTTP 1.1 is the standard protocol used on the Web today.) You should uncheck this box only if you’re having trouble connecting to a website. This tells Internet Explorer to use HTTP 1.0, which might solve the problem.
Use HTTP 1.1 Through Proxy Connections—This check box toggles on and off the use of HTTP 1.1 only when connecting through a proxy server.
Use HTTP2—This check box toggles Internet Explorer’s use of HTTP/2—originally Google’s SPDY (yes, it’s pronounced speedy) protocol—which modifies HTTP requests to achieve faster page loading times.
International
To understand the options in the International group, you need a bit of background on how Internet Explorer’s SmartScreen Filter watches out for phishing sites. Besides checking a global database of known phishing sites, the SmartScreen Filter also analyzes the site content to look for known phishing techniques (that is, to see whether the site is “phishy”). The most common of these is a check for domain spoofing. This common scam also goes by the names homograph spoofing and the look-alike attack. Internet Explorer also supports Internationalized Domain Names (IDN), which refers to domain names written in languages other than English, and it checks for IDN spoofing, domain name ambiguities in the user’s chosen browser language.
Phishers often resort to IDN spoofing to fool users into thinking an address is legitimate. For example, instead of the address ebay.com, a phisher might use εbαy.com (with the Greek letters ε (epsilon) and α (alpha) in place of e and a). Almost all the world’s characters have a Unicode value, but Internet Explorer is usually set up to recognize only a single language (such as English). If it comes across a character it doesn’t recognize, it works around the problem by converting all Unicode values into an equivalent value that uses only the ASCII characters supported by the domain name system.
This conversion uses a standard called Punycode. If the domain name uses only ASCII characters, the Punycode value and the Unicode value are the same. For a domain such as εbαy.com, the Punycode equivalent is xn--by--c9b0.com (the xn--prefix always appears; it tells you that the domain name is encoded). Internet Explorer encodes the domain to this Punycode value, displays the Punycode domain in the Address bar, and then surfs to the site. Internet Explorer also displays a message in the Notification bar telling you that the address contains characters it doesn’t recognize. In other words, an IDN spoofing site is less likely to fool users because the URL that appears in the status bar and the address no longer look similar to the URL of the legitimate site.
The options in the International group enable you to control aspects of this encoding process and related features (you need to restart Internet Explorer if you change any of these settings):
Always Show Encoded Addresses—Check this box to tell Internet Explorer to display the encoded Punycode web addresses in the status bar and Address bar. If you’re not worrying about IDN spoofing, you can uncheck this box to see the Unicode characters instead.
Send IDN Server Names for Intranet URLs—When checked, this box tells Internet Explorer to encode intranet addresses into Punycode before sending them for resolution. Some intranet sites don’t support Punycode, so this setting is off by default.
Send IDN Server Names for Non-Intranet URLs—When checked, this box tells Internet Explorer to encode addresses into Punycode before sending them for domain resolution.
Send URL path as UTF-8—When checked, this box tells Internet Explorer to send the full URL path using the UTF-8 standard, which is readable in any language. If you’re having trouble accessing a page that uses non-English characters in the URL, the server might not be able to handle UTF-8, so uncheck this box.
Send UTF-8 Query Strings for Intranet URLs—When checked, this box tells Internet Explorer to send intranet query strings (the text after the question mark [?] in the URL) using UTF-8. Many intranet sites don’t support UTF-8, so this setting is off by default.
Send UTF-8 Query Strings for Non-Intranet URLs—When checked, this box tells Internet Explorer to send web page query strings using UTF-8 standard.
Show Notification Bar for Encoded Addresses—When checked, this box tells Internet Explorer to display the following Notification bar message when it encodes an address into Punycode: “This Web address contains letters or symbols that cannot be displayed with the current language settings.”
Enable Alternative Codecs in HTML5 Media Elements—When this option is turned on, Internet Explorer allows HTML5 media to use alternative codecs to play the media. If you’re having trouble playing media in Internet Explorer, the first thing you should check is that this setting is activated. You must restart Internet Explorer if you change this setting.
Enable Automatic Image Resizing—If you check this box, Internet Explorer automatically shrinks large images so that they fit inside the browser window. This option is useful if you’re running Windows 10 with a small monitor or at a relatively low resolution, and you’re finding that many website images don’t fit entirely into the browser window.
Play Animations in Webpages—This check box toggles animated GIF images on and off. Most animated GIFs are unwelcome annoyances, so you’ll probably greatly improve your surfing experience by clearing this check box. If you turn this option off and you want to view an animation, right-click the box and then click Show Picture. Changing this setting requires you to restart Internet Explorer.
Play Sounds in Webpages—This check box toggles web page sound effects on and off. Because the vast majority of web page sounds are extremely bad MIDI renditions of popular tunes, turning off sounds will save your ears.
Show Image Download Placeholders—If you check this box, Internet Explorer displays a box that is the same size and shape as the image it is downloading.
Show Pictures—This check box toggles web page images on and off. If you’re using a slow connection, turn off this option and Internet Explorer will show only a box where the image would normally appear. (If the designer has included alt text, that text will appear inside the box.) If you want to view a picture when you’ve toggled images off, right-click the box and select the Show Picture option.
Security
The Security branch has many options related to Internet Explorer security, which is discussed in detail in Chapter 31, “Protecting Windows from Viruses and Spyware.”