Customize Your Browser Now that you've installed IE, you're ready to start surfing. But before you dive in, you might want to tweak IE's interface to suit your needs, interests, and surfing style. Here's how. Set a New Home Page When you boot up any browser for the first time, its home page--the page your browser automatically loads when you hit the Home button--is already set to Microsoft's manufacturer's URL. To change your home page, find the page you want to view at start-up, pull down the Tools menu, and choose Internet Options. Click the General tab. In the Home Page area, select Use Current to use the page you're currently viewing, or type any site's URL into the text box. To start each session with a blank page, click the Use Blank button. Or, even simpler, drag and drop any URL from your address field onto the Home button in your toolbars. For more in-depth instructions, refer to CNET's "Insider's Guide to Start Pages." Add and Remove Toolbar Buttons If you want quick, one-click access to IE's search or cut/paste functions, just add shortcut buttons to IE's toolbar. Right-click the toolbar, then click Customize. A dialog box pops up showing all the buttons available. With a few clicks, you can add the buttons to your toolbar. Just select the button you want, hit Add, and click Reset. IE immediately puts the button in your toolbar. Change Text Size Don't like the way certain sites display text on your browser? Are online fonts too small for you to read? IE 5 offers a simple remedy. First, set your browser to override Web page settings. Select Tools/Internet Options, click the General tab, then click Accessibility. In the resulting dialog box, check each of these top three check boxes: "Ignore colors specified on Web pages," "Ignore font styles specified on Web pages," and "Ignore font sizes specified on Web pages." Click OK to return to the Internet Options dialog box. Next, choose the View menu option and select Text Size (Largest, Larger, Medium, Smaller, or Smallest). These changes won't affect all text on every page, but they should work for most standard pages. To Change Your Background and Font Colors And suppose you hate the background or font colors on some Web sites. Turns out you can change these too. Once again, set your browser to override Web pages' settings (see the previous tip). Then, on the General tab of the Internet Options dialog box, click Colors. Deselect the Use Windows Colors check box. Click the boxes beside your preferred Text and Background options and select the colors you want to use. (Keep in mind that choosing the same or similar colors for the background and text will make it impossible to see the text.) You can even change the colors of visited, unvisited, and rollover hyperlinks. Accessorize Your Browser Think Internet Explorer itself looks a bit blasé? Give your browser a face-lift with Microsoft's Web Accessories. This page offers downloadable Explorer bars, customizable wallpapers, toolbar buttons, menu items, and other snazzy add-ons. IE doesn't offer skins yet, (for now, that's Netscape 6's domain), but who knows what IE developers have in store. Change Default Programs When you click the Edit or Mail button in IE 5, Windows launches a word processor or an email client, respectively. To view and modify which program IE automatically launches, click Tools and select Internet Options. In the Internet Options window, click the Programs tab. Use the pull-down menus after each category, such as HTML Editor, Email, Newsgroups, and so on, to change which program will open when you click the corresponding button. Surf Fast Few cyberlife experiences are more annoying than a slow-loading Web page. That's why we've rounded up a few performance tweaks and browsing tricks to get the fastest possible performance out of your browser. If you're working on a 14.4-kbps modem, however, we have one word for you: upgrade. Disable Animated GIFs Animated gifs may make your browsing experience seem more like TV, but they can also bring your browser to a virtual standstill. So, if you're sick of constant distractions and slow downloads, stop them from loading altogether. Head to Tools/Internet Options and click the Advanced tab. Scroll down to the Multimedia section, deselect the Play Animations option, and click OK. From now on, you'll see only the first frame of each animated GIF that loads. Cut Down on Multimedia Likewise, do away with bandwidth-eating streaming video and audio. Select Internet Options from the Tools menu and click the Advanced tab. Scroll down to the Multimedia segment and uncheck the boxes in front of Play Animations, Play Sounds, Play Video, and Show Pictures. To restore these settings, just recheck the boxes. To turn off Java, select Internet Options and the Security tab, then click the Custom Level button. Check the Disable box to turn off ActiveX Controls and Java applets, or check Prompt to have IE warn you when an applet tries to load. Use a Blank Home Page Every time you boot up IE, the browser takes you straight to whatever home page you set. But it takes time to load any Web page--time you might not want to waste. So, eliminate a home page altogether and start up on a blank page. Here's how: Pull down the Tools menu and choose Internet Options, then click the General tab. In the Home Page area, click the Use Blank button, et voilà, no more home page. Increase Your Cache If you often revisit one site several times per surfing session, this tip will save you lots of time. When you visit Web pages, your browser stores HTML code and graphics from those sites in a folder called a cache. The cache helps you get files fast when you hit the Back button because they're coming from your hard disk, not over your Net connection. For best surfing speeds, we recommend you allocate at least 10MB of your drive to the browser. From the Tools menu, select Internet Options and choose the General tab. In the Temporary Internet Files section, click Settings. Under "Amount of disk space to use," drag the slider to the right; you should choose about 5 percent of your hard disk. Stop Long Downloads This tip may be obvious, but it's also highly effective. If you're waiting for a page to load and it's taking forever, push the Stop button. Then hit Refresh to start over. Sometimes the path the page takes to get to your PC contains Net burps that slow it down, and refreshing will send it back to you via a new, clear route. Navigate With Just One Word Don't bother typing entire domain names (for example, www.cnet.com) into your browser. Instead, simply type the site's name (cnet) in the Address bar and press Ctrl-Enter to automatically add http://www and .com on each side of the word--a real time-saver. Manage Your Favorites Like an address book, a well-kept Favorites folder is your best friend. It stores links to all of the Web sites you want to revisit so that you don't have to hunt them down and type in their URLs every time. Here are a few tips to help you build up and organize your Favorites list. Save Your Favorite Sites Here's the scenario: every morning, you go online to get your business news from the Wall Street Journal and check the weather at the Weather Channel. So, rather than type www.wallstreetjournal.com or www.weather.com every time you visit the site, save the URL into your list of favorite sites, called Favorites in IE. Pressing Ctrl-D is the fastest way to create a Favorite, but that shortcut doesn't let you specify where to store the link. To add a Web page to a specific folder in your list, click Favorites in the menu bar, select Add To Favorites, and choose the appropriate folder. Organize Your Favorites It's not enough to stuff random links into your Favorites list. You'll need to be able to find them later, which means organizing them into the right folders. From the menu bar, select Favorites/Organize Favorites. You'll see a dialog box listing your current bookmarks and offering several button options. From there, you can create new folders and rename, move, or delete folders and bookmarks. Print Your Favorites Now that your list is in order, it's easy to print one of the Web pages in your Favorites folder without visiting the site itself. Just right-click the page from the Favorites menu and select Print from the pop-up menu. IE will send the site's page directly to your printer. Export Your Favorites If you have access to more than one computer (for example, one at work and another at home) and you'd like the same Favorites list on both of them, you can export your Favorites list as an HTML file and copy it to your second computer. To do this, pull down the File menu and choose Import And Export, step through the wizard and select Export, then pick the Favorites file you want to export to and the file where you want it to go. You can send it to any drive on your system (including a floppy) or to any computer on your network. Import Netscape Bookmarks If you're migrating from Netscape Navigator to Internet Explorer (or if you use both browsers interchangeably) you'll want to import Navigator's Bookmarks into IE's Favorites folder. Select Import And Export from the File menu to start the Import/Export Wizard. Click Next, make sure Import Favorites is highlighted, and click Next again. Select Netscape Navigator under "Import from an application" or browse to the bookmark.htm file under "Import from a file or address" and click Next. Finally, select the folder where you want to store the new bookmarks, click Next, and click Finish. Navigate With Ease Your browser's main purpose is to help you travel from one Web page to another with minimal fuss. Internet Explorer provides you with all the standard surfing tools, Back and Forward buttons, and a URL address field, but there's lots more power under the hood. Check out some of these slick navigation tricks. Take Giant Steps Back and Forth While it's easy to move back and forth between Web pages one at a time with IE's Back and Forward buttons, you can also leap ahead or back several pages at a time. Right-click either button (or click the tiny down arrows next to each button), and a pop-up menu displays the last ten sites you've visited. Then, simply select the page you'd like to jump to from the pop-up menu that appears. Browse With Hot Keys Keyboard shortcuts save loads of time because they let you execute certain commands without digging through menus to find them. IE makes use of many standard Windows shortcuts, plus a few browser-specific ones. For example, to move back and forth between Web pages without clicking the Back and Forward buttons, hold down the Alt key, then hit the left arrow to move back and the right arrow to move forward. Add Buttons to the Links Toolbar The Links toolbar is a quick and easy way to access your favorite Web pages without entering the Favorites menu. First, turn on your Links toolbar (if you haven't already) by right-clicking any toolbar and selecting Links from the pop-up menu. To add a new button to the toolbar, drag any URL link from the address field to the toolbar and drop it. Tah-dah!--an instant link to any site. Open Multiple Windows Ever need to open a second Web page but don't want to close the one you're on? Internet Explorer lets you open more than one browser window simultaneously. Click File in the main menu, select New, and then Window. To close a browser window, click the X in the top right corner or select Close from the File menu. You can also open a new browser window with Ctrl-N. Surf Safe and Sound These days, we hear a lot about hackers, crackers, and malicious applets that can wreak havoc on your machine. Of course, it's a good idea to install Internet privacy software, but IE also has built-in security measures. We've listed a few of our favorites. Set Your Security Level If you want to keep random Web sites from sending cookies to your hard drive or uploading ActiveX Controls, for example, it's easy to adjust IE's security settings. Select Internet Options from the Tools menu and click the Security tab. Slide the bar under "Security level for this zone" up or down to increase or decrease the security level. Each level (High, Medium, Medium-Low, or Low) lists exactly which actions and applications it allows or blocks. More advanced users can click Custom Levels to fiddle with individual settings. Disable AutoComplete Chances are, you occasionally visit a Web site, fill out a form, or perform a search you don't want anyone else to know about (like that time you bought your husband's birthday present online). You should know, however, that when IE's AutoComplete function is active, some sites' search and entry fields retain the words you've entered; anyone who uses the browser after you and visits that site can see the last entries you made. To turn off this part of AutoComplete, choose Tools/Internet Options, then click the Content tab. Click the AutoComplete button in the Personal information section and uncheck the Forms box in the AutoComplete Settings dialog box. Cover Your Tracks Internet Explorer also stores a record of all the Web sites you've visited in its History folder. It's convenient for you, but also means that the boss can easily find out you've been surfing the want ads. Here's what you can do to get rid of unneeded URL histories: From the Tools menu, go to Internet Options. Under the General tab, find the History section, and click the Clear History button. Delete Individual History Pages If you don't want to clear your entire History folder, on the other hand, it's easy to remove just single pages. Click the History button on your IE toolbar to open the History window frame. Then right-click any file you want to dump and select Delete from the pop-up window. Toss Your Cookies The History folder isn't the only place IE records your surfing habits. Many Web sites drop little files into your system that let them keep track of your passwords and the dates and times of your visits. To get rid of these files, delete the contents of the Cookies folder and the Temporary Internet Files folder in your Windows directory (but not the folders themselves). All traces of where you have surfed will disappear. Make IE Safe for Kids The Internet contains information of all kinds, and not all of it is for all viewers. But it is possible to safeguard kids from the Web's more risqué elements. Using a separate software program for child-safe browsing will provide the most powerful options (see CNET's review of Internet blocking software), but IE has some built-in filtering tools of its own. Select Internet Options from the Tools menu and click the Content tab. Click the Enable button under Content Advisor and adjust the slider in each of the four categories: Language, Nudity, Sex, and Violence. The Description box at the bottom details what each level allows. Click OK to activate the Advisor. Search the Internet It's one thing to know how to navigate the Web, but finding the information you need is another matter entirely. A ton of info is available, but without the right search tools and techniques, it's easy to get lost. Internet Explorer tries to plow through the sea of Internet information with several built-in features and functions. (For more Web search tips, check out CNET's "Ultimate Guide to Search.") Use IE's Search Assistant One of IE 5's handiest and most effective tools, the Search Assistant, helps locate sites, places, and people on the Web by accessing several different search engines, including Yahoo, AltaVista, and Go.com. To display the Search Assistant, click the Search button in the toolbar. A new pane opens on the left side of your browser window. Pick the kind of search you want to perform, either for a Web page, an address, a business, a map, or results from one of your previous searches. Enter the text you want to find, then click Search. By default, IE 5 uses Go.com to run Web site searches. To run the search using a different search engine, click the Next button in the Search Assistant pane, and a drop-down menu displays the services you can choose from. Fine-Tune Your Searches It's also possible to fine-tune the Search Assistant. Click the Search button on the toolbar and select Customize. Now you can specify which types of searches you want to appear in the Search Assistant window and which sites the assistant will use for those searches. Type Keywords Into the URL Box In addition to the handy Search Assistant, IE 5 also lets you type search terms directly into the URL address field. So rather than typing, say, www.macys.com into the URL field, just type macys directly into the URL box, and IE will automatically perform an MSN search of the Web. Find Related Links If you're interested in a site you're currently viewing and would like to check out similar sites, select the Show Related Links from the Tools menu. IE uses the interest-matching service Alexa to search for Web pages on similar topics, then displays them in the browser's normal Search window. Search Your History Suppose you need to find some information you recently saw on a Web site, but you can't remember where or when you saw it. Provided you haven't erased your History in a while, IE will search your previously visited sites for keywords. Just click the History button, select Search from within the Explorer bar, and hunt away. Sift Through Long Pages Say you've performed a Web search for a specific word or phrase, but the resulting page of links is so long that you can't find the site you need. Just search for keywords on the currently open page. Choose the Edit menu option and select Find (on This Page) or hit Ctrl-F. Enter the word you're looking for into resulting the dialog box and hit Enter. As with other Windows-type searches, you can limit your search by clicking the Match Whole Word Only or Match Case boxes. =============================================================================================== CNET's Search Tips Now that you know where to search on the Web, we'll show you how to search. Not many people know it, but to get the best results from a search engine or site you have to do more than just type a few words into a search box. Follow these five steps, and soon you'll be able to find anything, anywhere, in no time. 1. Get to Know Your Search Engine For years, to achieve the most effective searches, we've had to add Boolean expressions (AND, OR, NOT) to our keywords. For example, to search for the woolly mammoth skeleton found in 1997, you'd type woolly AND mammoth AND skeleton AND 1997. But Boolean terms aren't the only way to narrow down your search. In fact, most sites offer advanced search methods that include expanded sets of search terms and parameters designed to get the most out of that particular engine. Read the help page on any search site for examples, tips, or interactive wizards that build search expressions for you. 2. Use Quotation Marks When you run a search on an exact phrase, enclose the phrase in quotation marks. If you don't, some search engines will show you pages that don't contain all the words in your phrase. Fortunately, most search engines recognize that words in quotation marks must show up verbatim in the search results. So, if you type "We hold these truths to be self-evident," chances are, all the sites in your search results will contain copies of or quotations from the Declaration of Independence. 3. Use Addition and Subtraction Symbols If you want to hone your search to a few, perfect matches, use some arithmetic in your queries. It's simpler than it sounds. Most search engines let you stick the + and - symbols in front of keywords to tell the engine which words must or must not appear in the resulting pages. For example, if you want information about Mammoth Lake, try +lake +mammoth -woolly. This simple trick will help avoid getting answers you don't want. 4. If at First You Don't Succeed, Add Another Keyword When your search turns up 15,731 hits, refine your search by adding more keywords or phrases to your query. For example, you want to find information on the woolly mammoth skeleton found in Siberia in 1997. You enter the words +woolly +mammoth +Siberia, and the site returns hundreds of matches, some of which have nothing to do with your topic. Don't be discouraged. Instead, search again, this time with +woolly +mammoth +skeleton +Siberia +1997. You'll get results that are much closer to what you're looking for--guaranteed. 5. Bypass the Portal If you love a search site's engine but can't handle the clutter that fills its portal page, don't worry. With just a bit of HTML savvy--and Microsoft's Active Desktop--you can dump all the portal trappings so that you're left with just the engine. Here's how: Go to your favorite portal. We'll use AltaVista as an example. In Internet Explorer, select View/Source. In Netscape, select View/Page Source. Copy the text between (and including) FORM and /FORM and paste it into a word processor or text editor. Save the document as My AltaVista.html or something equally easy to remember (include the HTML extension) and place it on your desktop. Right-drag the new icon anywhere on your desktop, and select Create Active Desktop Item(s) Here. Delete the original icon. Add a link to that search tool to your browser's QuickLaunch bar by right-dragging the new icon to the QuickLaunch area of your status bar, and select Move Here. (This tip works only with Windows 95 or 98 with the Windows Desktop Update installed. If you can't get it to work, download the Windows Desktop Update). ================================================================================================ Work Offline Surprise! Internet Explorer's not just for surfing the Web. Sure, we have plenty of complaints about version 5's tight Windows integration, but it does allow you to use your browser to search your hard drive, send email, and launch programs right from your desktop. Organize Your Hard Drive Case in point: IE 5 can also operate as a file management tool similar to Windows Explorer. To view your hard drive from within your browser window, type C: in the Address bar; the window will display the drive's contents. The toolbar buttons will change, and you can use them as you would those in Windows Explorer. For example, you can copy files from one folder to another using Copy and Paste, and double-click a document to open it in its related application. Launch Programs From Your Browser IE also lets you open any program on your system from your browser, provided the program has a desktop shortcut. Just type the name of your shortcut in IE's address bar, and the program will launch. For instance, if you have a desktop shortcut to Microsoft Word, type Microsoft Word in the address bar, and the program will automatically launch. Keep in mind that you must enter the exact name of the shortcut as it appears on your desktop. Read a Web Page Offline Don't have time to finish reading your online newspaper before you have to log off the Web? Big deal. With Internet Explorer, you can take it with you. To read a Favorites or Links bar item offline, right-click it, then click Make Available Offline. IE stores the Web page, complete with graphics, into a temporary folder. Then you're free to read it on your own time. Save a Web Page for Offline Viewing Here's another way to make a Web page available offline: Select File/Save As; choose a folder for the file; alter the filename (if required); from the Save As Type drop-down list, select "Web page, complete (*.htm,*.html)"; then click Save. Anytime you want to view the page again, simply open the file; it will appear as you saw it on the Web, with all of its images, sound files, and so on. Or if you'd rather not waste disk space on graphics files, you can opt to save the page as a text-only file instead. Mail a Web Page If you want to pass along an online article or a cool Web page to a friend, there's no need to copy and paste it into an email. Just click the Mail button and choose either Send A Link to fire off the URL or Send A Page to transmit the entire HTML page. Note: Your recipient will need to have an HTML-capable mail reader to view the page. You can also select Send and choose Page By E-mail or Link By E-mail from the File menu to perform the same actions. Use IE As Your FTP Client In addition to viewing standard HTTP Web pages, IE also operates as an FTP client--an app that lets you download files directly from another online computer. Type the URL of an FTP site into the address bar (be sure to type ftp:// instead of http:// before the URL) and click Go or press Enter. If you need to enter a username and a password, select Login As from the File menu and enter your name and password. Once you're connected to the site, you can drag and drop files from your hard drive to the site to upload them, or download files from the site to your hard drive. Add Address Toolbars to the Windows Taskbar Have you ever wanted to open a specific Web page without launching your browser first? If you're running Windows 98, there's a simple way to do it: Just add IE 5's Address toolbar to your Windows 98 Taskbar (located at the bottom of your screen to the right of the Start menu). Here's how: Right-click an open spot on the Taskbar, choose Toolbars, and select Address from the pop-up menu. To remove the Address toolbar, right-click the taskbar again and uncheck Address under Toolbars in the same menu. Troubleshoot You've mastered your browser, but that doesn't guarantee problem-free surfing. Next time you run into problems that you can't fix with the Refresh button, see if one of these tips does the trick. Repair Internet Explorer If IE 5's on the fritz and you can't locate an obvious cause, try the Repair button. In the Start Menu, go to Settings/Control Panel. Then double-click Add/Remove Programs and select Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 and Internet Tools. Click the Add/Remove button. A pop-up window asks you whether you want to add a component, repair Internet Explorer, or restore the previous Windows configuration. Select Repair Internet Explorer. This self-repair tool fixes any IE components that may have installed incorrectly. After the process is finished, restart Windows. Stop Jerky Browsing Occasionally, long Web pages load slowly or jerkily. To iron out your browsing, simply select Internet Options from the Tools menu. From the Advanced tab listed under Browsing options, select the box labeled Use Smooth Scrolling. Click OK to save changes. Now your pages should scroll without hitches or hiccups. Limit Cache Size Earlier, we recommended that you increase your cache size to boost your surfing speeds (see Surf Fast). But if you don't have a large hard drive, increasing your cache may not be a viable option because it will eat up space. So, to limit the amount of space IE uses, select Internet Options from the Tools menu and click the Settings button under Temporary Internet Files. Slide the bar under "Amount of disk space to use" to the left or enter a smaller number of megabytes in the field to the right. Reset Default Settings Sometimes, however--and believe us, it's not easy to say this--your IE problems are entirely your fault. After you've made a lot of changes to IE's preferences or customized your home page, IE may start to misbehave. If you have no idea which tweak caused the problem, back up to square one and start over. To restore IE's default settings, select Internet Options from the Tools menu, then click the Programs tab and the Reset Web Settings button. Resume Your Download After a Disconnection If your modem connection breaks during a download or if a download times out, sometimes the download window will remain open. If you leave that window open, reconnect to the Internet, and start downloading the file again, IE will resume the download where it left off. Get New Updates and Add-Ons Like all other software, IE is constantly changing and improving. To find Microsoft's latest updates and add-ons for Internet Explorer (including security patches), check out Microsoft's Windows Update page by selecting Windows Update from IE's Tools menu or from the Windows Start menu. (Make sure you're already connected to the Internet.) Windows Update prompts you to accept the Active Setup installation, which you must do to view the Updates page. Active Setup then checks your system to find which of the latest add-ons and updates you need, then lets you choose the ones you want to install from a list.