Windows® 7 All-in-One for Dummies®

Chapter V.3. Making Internet Explorer Your Own

In This Chapter

• Making Internet Explorer work your way

• Turbocharging your surfing

• Speeding things up with Accelerators

• Hardening Internet Explorer 8

• Digging up the truth about cookies and InPrivate filtering

• Understanding RSS feeds

I hear the same questions over and over again about making Internet Explorer, or IE, run faster (you can't do much); bypassing some of the more, uh, idiosyncratic IE behavior (a few solutions exist); clobbering cookies (why?), and knowing whether RSS is worth the effort (if you regularly read a "newsy" site, the answer is a resounding Yes).

In Book V, Chapter 2, I talk about getting Internet Explorer going for the first time. I also discuss topics that are common to the three major browsers — IE, Firefox, and Chrome: specifying a home page (you aren't stuck on MSN.com, right?), changing your default search engine (Hint: Microsoft Live isn't the world's most popular search engine), waltzing around the IE window, surfing on the sly in Porn mode (er, InPrivate Browsing), using tabs, preventing phishing attacks, and working with Favorites (better known as Bookmarks in Firefox and Chrome).

In Chapter 4 of this minibook, I show you how to put lipstick on the Firefox pig (not a disparaging remark!). If you use Firefox — I do — or if you use Chrome, you should read this chapter first: Many of the tricks here work in Firefox and Chrome, too.

In this chapter, I take you through the tricks that can help you get the most out of ...