By most estimates, Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) is still the most widely used browser.cAnd it's the browser sanctioned by many corporations. So whether you like IE or not, chances are good that you use it at least some of the time. Chances are that you've searched for answers to some of the browser's most annoying traits. Here are a few:
QUES: When I'm on some of my favorite sites and want to insert a link, IE gives me a yellow bar that says "This website is using a scripted window to ask you for information," and I have to click the "x" in the yellow bar to get rid of the message and allow the pop-up. How do I get rid of this bar permanently?
ANS: You need to do two things. First, add the sites in question to your list of trusted sites. To do so, open the IE Tools menu, and click Internet Options. From the resulting Internet Options dialog box, click the Security tab. From there, select the Trusted Sites icon, and then click the Sites button. The Trusted Sites dialog lists the sites that you have marked as trustworthy. The URL (web address) of the site currently displayed will appear automatically in the "Add this website" box. Uncheck the check box labeled "Require server verification," and then click the Add button. The site will then appear in the listed of trusted sites. Click Close to close this dialog box. Now you need to revisit the Security tab of the Internet Options dialog box. This time, though, select the Internet icon rather than Trusted Sites, and then click the Custom Level button. Doing so opens the Security Settings dialog box. Scroll down in the list of Security Settings and find the setting marked "Automatic prompting for ActiveX controls." Set that to Enable. Now any pop-ups that prompt you for information on your trusted site should appear without the yellow bar.
QUES: Every time I want to download a file in IE, the yellow information bar asks me for permission. How can I get rid of that?
ANS: The solution here is similar to the one above. Open the Tools menu, and click Internet Options. From the Internet Options dialog box, select the Security Tab, and then click the Custom Level button. In the resulting Security Settings dialog box, scroll down the list of settings until you see the Downloads section. Under that, locate the option labeled "Automatic prompting for file downloads," and click the Enable option button. Click OK. From that point on, you should see a simple Save/Open dialog box whenever you click a link to download a file, regardless of which site you're on.
QUES: Whenever I download a file using IE, I have to use the Save As dialog box to navigate to the folder in which I store my downloaded files. How can I get IE to save to that folder by default?
ANS: You can change the default download folder, but to do so, you'll need to use the Windows Registry Editor. Here's how. Press Ctrl+R to open the Run dialog box, type "regedit" (without the quotation marks), and press Enter. The Registry Editor opens. Expand the HKEY_CURRENT_USER tree, and keep expanding the tree by navigating down to Software, Microsoft, Internet Explorer. Highlight the Internet Explorer entry, and in the right-hand pane, double-click the Download Directory entry. An Edit String dialog box appears. In the Value Data text box, replace whatever is there with the drive and folder location where you wish to save downloaded files. For instance, if you have a folder on your C drive called "downloads," then you would type c:\downloads. If you wish to save files to your desktop so that you don't lose them, the location for Windows 7 and Vista users would be c:\users\\desktop. Replace with the name you use to log on to your PC. Click OK, and test the setting out by downloading a file. You can leave the Registry Editor open to the exact same place in case you need to make a change.
QUES: Sometimes the Back button in Internet Explorer does not take me back to the previous page. The browser just gets "stuck" on the current page. How can I fix this?
ANS: When this happens only at certain sites, the culprit is usually a poorly designed web page or one where the author deliberately tries to get you to stay on the site. There are two quick ways around such "sticky" websites. First, you can click the small down arrow to the right of the Back and Forward buttons on your browser's toolbar to reveal the most recently visited sites. Click one that you visited previous to the sticky site, and you should be whisked away. You can also right-click the stick page in question and click Back from the pop-up menu. That often works as well.
