Tag: ie
September 01, 2008 by
Jason
While rival browser makers Mozilla and Opera have launched the latest iterations of their products, Firefox 3.0 and respectively Opera 9.5, as early as June 2008, Microsoft is still in the development phase of Internet Explorer 8, the successor of IE7. August 27 marked the delivery of IE8 Beta 2, a deadline absurdly safeguarded by Microsoft, with the company only managing to confirm a release by the end of this month, and taking its due time when it came down to making available the bits for the browser second development milestone. Internet Explorer 8 is still far from the finish line, reportedly planned for November 2008, but Beta 2 feels more like a browser version ready for wrap-up than Beta 1.
The reason for this is the fact that, in comparison with the March 2008 release of IE8, the second Beta is packed with features and functionality aimed at the home and business users, on top of what has already been available to IT professionals and web content developers and designers. In this regard, IE8 Beta 1 was more of a skeleton on which Microsoft built Beta 2. Now, although Microsoft is not touting IE8 Beta 2 as a feature-complete version, it is clear that the Redmond company will move further only with the process of fine-tuning the browser got with Release to Web (RTW). Read More»
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Internet Explorer 8 is not the fastest browser in the universe. This, according to IE Program Manager, Christian Stockwell, working on the performance of the browser. However, this is not to say that the Redmond company has not poured a consistent amount of efforts into boosting the performance of IE7’s successor. In fact, Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, planned for release by the end of this month, will offer palpable proof of the new horsepower under the browser’s hood.
“When we took a hard look at our goals and considered what we could do to build the best browser, we were presented with a quandary. On the one hand, we could focus very narrowly on scripting performance, trusting that our investment would noticeably improve our users’ browsing experience. Alternatively, we could invest more broadly in realistic scenarios, measuring heavily-used subsystems and investing our optimization effort accordingly. We opted for the latter approach,” Stockwell noted.
Even as early as March 2008, IE GM Dean Hachamovitch indicated that JavaScript performance was up 2.5 times, the Gmail inbox was loading 34% faster, the task of opening a new conversation took 45% less time, while that of opening a thread 25% less. With IE8 Beta 2, Microsoft has tweaked the execution time for the browser, but it has also managed to speed up navigation and user interaction. Read More»
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Add-ons are programs that add features to a web browser or change the way it works. If you’ve ever wished Internet Explorer could do something new or differently, chances are there’s an add-on out there that will fulfill your wish.
I must have tried out hundreds of add-ons over the years. In this column, I’ll talk about five add-ons that I use every day. They have all earned a place in my add-on stable because they really have made my online life easier, and I miss their presence when using somebody else’s computer.
Power users love IE7Pro
IE7Pro is a free add-on for Internet Explorer 7 that is indispensable to me in my day-to-day work. It adds a raft of new abilities to the web browser, including advanced management of tabbed browsing settings, a simple download manager, spelling checks of text you enter in web forms, autoscrolling of webpages, quick searching of page text, ad and Flash blocking, custom keyboard shortcuts, and much more. Read More»
Posted in Internet | 1 Comment »
What I really want to do is add a link to Google Docs on the right-click (context) menu in Windows Explorer. That way, I could open a file in Google Docs by right-clicking it in Explorer and choosing Send To > Google Docs.
Well, I wasn’t able to figure out how to do this. So instead, I created a shortcut to open Google Docs, and then I browsed to the file and opened it the old-fashioned way.
This won’t save you a lot of time, but at least Google Docs makes it easy for you to transmit the file to the service as an e-mail attachment. And, of course, you can send the file to other e-mail recipients at the same time.
To create the shortcut to Google Docs, log in to the service, copy the URL in the address bar, right-click the desktop or any folder window, choose New > Shortcut, paste the URL in the Location field, click Next, type Google Docs (or the name of your choice), and press Enter (or click Finish).
Now navigate to the shortcut you just created, right-click it, and choose Properties. Click in the “Shortcut key” box, and type your preferred keyboard shortcut (I chose Ctrl-Alt-G). Read More»
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In order to improve performance and reduce the amount of time spent waiting to view Web pages, Internet Explorer stores many of the Web pages and graphics you have viewed in a folder on your hard drive. Next time you revisit a Web site, Internet Explorer can use the content stored in the Temporary Internet Files folder to display the site content, instead of retrieving them from the Web.
You can manually clear the contents of this folder in Internet Explorer by selecting Internet Options for the Tools menu. From the General tab, simply click the Delete Files button. You can also configure Internet Explorer to empty the contents of this folder when you close your browser. To do so, select the Advanced tab from the Internet Options window. Under the Security section, select the option to Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed and click OK.
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Use these tips to help manage your files.
1. Use My Documents. For many reasons, it’s smart to take advantage of My Documents feature in Microsoft Windows. To open My Documents in Windows, click Start, and then click My Documents. My Documents provides an easy way for you to store your personal documents. By using My Documents, you will be better able to:
2. Find files. Windows provides easy access to the My Documents folder (and its subfolders) in many places: through the Start menu, the task pane in Windows Explorer, common File Open and File Save dialog boxes, and other places. Note Windows Explorer displays the structure of files and folders on your computer. To open Windows Explorer, click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Windows Explorer. Read More»
Posted in Computer | 1 Comment »
When a web browser (IE 8 or Firefox for example) connects to a website it establishes connections. Each connection downloads one thing whether it is the html of the page, an image, or ad. Connections are used as a throttle that’s being held back to keep web servers and the internet from getting overloaded.
By default IE 8 only establishes two simultaneous connections at a time to download a web page. The two simultaneous connections limit is specified in the HTTP standard. The two connections limit can be changed on your computer through a registry edit.
Increasing the maximum allowed simultaneous connects from 2 to 16 can increase the speed of some web sites because the sites are downloaded in larger chunks at a time. Keep in mind that this won’t work on all web sites because the number of connections limit can be controlled by the web server. Read More»
Posted in Internet, Software | 2 Comments »
February 06, 2008 by
Jason
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is without a doubt the main vector of attacks, when it comes down to web-based threats. Its ubiquity, as well as its intimate integration into the Windows platform, makes it an excellent avenue for attacks. With IE6, Microsoft has gained an ill reputation for failing dramatically to protect end users. From IE6, which undoubtedly is an apex of insecurity compared to alternative browsers, the Redmond company moved to Windows Vista and Internet Explorer 7 under User Account Control, virtually cutting the browser from the critical areas of the operating system. Web-based attacks coming via IE7 in Protect Mode will not be able to write themselves to disk without specific user permission, because the browser runs with the very least possible privileges. Read More»
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December 29, 2007 by
Jason
If you’re running IE 7 on XP SP2, you may get a Webpage cannot be displayed error when trying to access the Web. If so, any of several recent updates to IE 7 may have created a conflict with your antivirus or antispyware security suite. You should check your suite’s configuration to make sure the updated version of IE is still allowed to access the Web, or contact your security vendor for an update, as described in Microsoft KB article 942818.
Over the holidays, I visited my Dad, who was having issues using AOL. Once I removed his 2006-era version of an antivirus program, and updated him to the 2008 version, his system worked perfectly. While his antivirus signatures were being regularly updated via a paid-up subscription, the older version of his application itself was causing the conflict. Read More»
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December 26, 2007 by
Jason
This is an old hack and it’s well documented all over the place so I don’t feel so bad about cutting & pasting the content but nonetheless it was taken from Computerworld.
By default, IE allows only two simultaneous download sessions from a single Web server. This can affect the speed of your Web browsing, because you’re not able to simultaneously download all the objects that make up a Web page, so the page displays more slowly. If you could force IE to download more objects at once, Web pages would display more quickly.
A tweak to the Windows Registry does the trick. With this tweak, you can force IE to use more than two simultaneous sessions. A good number is 10. Here’s how to do it: Read More»
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