Fix IE9 Address Bar Search

So the IE9 beta is out.  The rest of the Internet is busy reviewing it today, so I won’t bother.  I will, however, show you how to fix one little problem.  It has to do with a little-used feature that I happen to use from time to time: searching.

IE8 had separate text boxes for entering an URL and entering a search query.  This made it simple for developers, but it kind of sucked for users.  Really, by 2010 I kind of thought my web browser would know how to figure out the difference between www.microsoft.com/msdn and “Microsoft MSDN” and choose whether to navigate directly or search accordingly.  Google Chrome really upped the game here: there’s one box, and it always seems to know exactly what you want to do.  It’s still the best implementation of an address bar out there, in my opinion, but IE9 is certainly catching up.

Under IE9, if you type an address, it works.  Wonderful.  But if you type something that’s not clearly an address, one of two things happens.  Either you’re brought to a search results page (from Bing, Google, or whoever else you’ve chosen to use) or – if there’s a really obvious ‘best’ search result – you’re taken right to the site you obviously wanted to go to.  This sounds nice, but when I type something that’s not an address, I want search results.  If I wanted to go to www.linux.org, that’s what I would have typed, so why doesn’t “linux” take me to my search results page where I can click on the Wikipedia article?

Luckily, this behavior can easily be changed.  When I first started looking into this, I expected something ugly… maybe even as bad as writing my own search provider.  But the solution is really simple.  Obscure, perhaps.  But simple.  Here’s how:

Click the “Tools” button (the gear at the top right of the window), and then click “Manage add-ons”:

Now click on “Search Providers”, and then select Google (or Bing, or whatever else you use):

See the “Disable top result in address bar” link I highlighted?  Click it.  Then click Close.  That’s it!  Now, you’ll always get search results (unless you typed an address, in which case it will go where you told it to).

When I first ran into this, I started to rant a bit.  But after figuring this one out, I have to admit that Microsoft got it right.  They set up the default setting the way the unwashed masses will like it, they made it nicely configurable for those who want it to work a specific way, and they kept the details out of the way until needed.

IE8 Security Warning – HTTP/HTTPS

The more I use it, the more I love it. IE8 is actually a great product and I truly believe Microsoft got a lot of things right in this edition. Sure, there are still things that could have been done differently, but can’t that be said about Firefox and Chrome too?

Nonetheless, there is one pop up in particular that does drive me insane.  The infamous “Do you want to view only the webpage content that was delivered securely?’ security dialogue is almost enough to make me want to buy a Mac(……….. Just kidding – Macs, are they for me?)

This issue is not new to IE8 actually, but the wording has now changed and people are forced to click NO instead of “Yes” as they would have in the past. The natural tendency of end users to never read any thing that suddenly pops up and just click “yes”, means that a lot of websites are not going to render properly after they have inadvertently been told not to display insecure content.

Let’s be clear about one thing though – this is not Microsoft’s fault. Web designers should strive to only deliver secure content on secure web pages. This is really just common sense.

Anyway, luckily, the fix for this issue is really easy and probably has a very minimal security impact for your average everyday web surfer.

Simply go to:

Tools->Internet Options->Security

Select the ‘Security’ tab

Click the ‘Custom Level’ button

In the ‘Miscellaneous’ section change “Display mixed content” to Enable

Voila, annoying pop up has magically disappeared.

Enjoy your new browsing experience.

IE8 Slow – An addendum to tweaking IE8

As an additional item to the tweaking IE8 blog post, one tweak that has become increasingly popular on  the net involves downloading and installing a package often referred to as the DelDomains package.

While this fix likely won’t do anything for those of you with a fresh install of IE8 on Windows 7 and probably with Windows Vista, it is very likely to help people that have upgraded to IE8 on a crusty old XP box. The reason for this is simple – spyware.

Being that XP was so prone to so many types of malware, most people at one time or another installed programs such as Spybot or Adaware. These programs actually worked very well at controlling and removing spyware and part of this was through the clever use of IE7s security zones. These programs would literally add hundreds of rogue domains to the “blocked” list in IE7 effectively stopping further infection.

When upgrading to IE8, Microsoft, as it rightly should, leaves these browser specific settings alone and imports them into the new IE8 install. However, IE8 seems to deal with these entries in a different fashion than its predecessor which results in a long delay for some – especially while launching the browser. Further to this, the browser doesn’t actually need these sites listed in this fashion anymore as IE8 has an enhanced security regime, which renders this method of blocking unnecessary.

To download the tool, right click here and save the tool to your desktop. Then right click on the file to install.

This tool will delete all of the sites listed in your trusted, enhanced security configuration and restricted zones. Any trusted zones that you have set up yourself will have to be re-added.

This tool has been shown to greatly improve launch time for many.

While on the same topic….there is one tweak that likely won’t help you if your Internet Explorer is working but slow.

Some people have reported that re-registering actxprxy.dll gave their browser a speed increase. Unfortunately, there can be no truth to this.

actxprxy.dll is a file that is automatically registered during the IE8 install and without it IE8 will not even open. Re-registering an already registered file, while doing no harm, will do nothing to your system. This tweak is unfortunately not legitimate. However, if your IE8 install is not opening at all, you could try running regsvr32 actxprxy.dll from an elevated command prompt and this may fix the issue.

Anyway, hope this tip helps.

Cheers

Tweaking IE8

With all of the fuss surrounding the recent release of IE8, I have decided that going over some of the great new technical tools available for diagnosing performance issues and tweaking the browser itself would be a good idea.

Historically, Microsoft has kind of left both end-users and developers alike fending for themselves when it came to diagnosing performance related issues within the IE framework. There was very little offered in terms of managing the browser and getting information from it. A lot of fixes came from a “gut feeling” and from the IT community’s own empirical testing.

IE8, has greatly changed that. Managing add-ons, monitoring their performance and disabling crapware is a simple process that has eliminated a lot of the guesswork.

By simply clicking on the TOOLS menu and then on the Manage Add-ONS, one can get a very accurate overview of how these are affecting the overall browsing experience. There are a plethora of columns that can be added and all of these display information that may be of use for us technically curious folk.

Ostensibly, the column that would be of particular interest to most of our readership is the LOAD TIME column. I really have to give Microsoft a standing ovation for this – we have been waiting for something that gives us this kind of performance metric for a long time and now we have it. YAAAAAY

This is all great…but, as you can see from the picture, not all load times are posted. I am not actually certain of why that is, but when I have an answer for that I will append it to the end of the blog. Unfortunately, a couple of the add-ons that I am most leery of, do not have load times posted as well…but I am going to go out on a bit of a limb here. My own tests, and some of the evidence I have ran across on other forums, suggests that the Microsoft’s own Research add-on is responsible for some slowness – especially on older machines.

I am going to go ahead and suggest that our readership disable these and hopefully this will put pressure on the MS Office team to follow the IE8 development teams recommendations for building robust and speedy add-ons. I realize that a lot of you reading this are developers and may actually find this of great interest. Here’s a link to it: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/04/04/designing-for-add-on-performance.aspx

Also, since we are on the topic of developers, IE8 also has a great new feature for you. Simply pushing F12 will bring up the developer tools menu, which instantly displays a huge amount of information about the current rendered page. There is no need to open a separate window anymore.

Pretty spiffy, I would say.

Also, for those of you who are deploying IE8 in a larger setting, or for those that just want to play, the IE8 team has also provided an administration pack that allows you to easily tweak and customize the browser for deployment. This toolkit is available here: http://technet.microsoft.com/de-de/ie/cc889349(en-us).aspx

Anyway, this post is by no means exhaustive on any aspect of the browser, but I hope I have piqued your curiosity enough to dive into the menus and see what new features lie within. Overall, Microsoft finally appears to be on the right track with the browser – at least in terms of usability.

Google Chrome: There And Back Again

Okay, so I’ll admit it: I like Google Chrome.  Lots.

It’s fast, it’s clean, and it’s a pleasure to use.  The combined address and search bar (why don’t all browsers do this?) is nice and prominent, the other required UI widgets are easy to click, and the software generally gets out of your way and lets you do your job.  Exactly what I like in a browser, and such a change from IE’s constant nagging and messy UI.  And perhaps most importantly, for me at least, it’s secure: sandboxed, proven rendering engine, and rarely-targeted due to it’s obscurity.  In fact, it was the only browser to (mostly) survive CanSecWest’s pwn2own security contest – although Opera wasn’t included (but they’re used to that).

It might not be perfect: bookmark support is rudimentary at best, there is no support whatsoever for feeds, and certain areas are a bit unpolished, like the awkward brilliance of its file downloading UI.  But I don’t really mind: I don’t use these features anyway.  I just want the browser.

So, I jumped ship.  I boldly clicked on the ‘Make Google Chrome my default browser’.  I even unpinned IE from my taskbar.

At first, it was a beautiful thing.  Fast, clean browsing!  And I was supporting a different evil empire!

But things soured quickly.  Supposedly, Chrome isolates each tab in a separate sandbox, so if one dies, the browser lives on.  I’ve seen this in action, and it does work.  Sometimes.  But apparently not always, because browsing Google Analytics always triggers a crash by the time I’m three or four pages in.  Oh, sure, it’s (as always) Adobe Flash that’s actually crashing, but it’s bringing Google Chrome down with it.  And not just the tab: the whole browser stops responding, and I have to kill it with Task Manager.

And then, I did another crazy thing: I clicked a link in Outlook.  Well, Google Chrome fired up just fine… and then did nothing.  No page.  Nothing.  Just an ocean of white.  For some reason, it won’t actually load the links the shell passes to it.

Now, I’m sure there’s a solution here.  It’s probably quick and easy – if you know it, leave a comment – but you know what?  I don’t care.  I should not have to troubleshoot such a basic feature: that’s Google’s job, and they failed.  And yes, technically, Google Analytics crashing is Adobe’s fault, but if I can’t even use Google Chrome to browse Google Analytics without it dying on me, then fuck that.

So once again, I’m back to IE.  Not because I like it.  Not because I’m too lazy or complacent to try alternatives.  Because the damn thing actually works.  Google: please fix your shit.  I like it.  I want to use it.  I want to ditch IE.  But I need a browser that actually WORKS.  And while you’re at it, quit using Flash all over the place.

Internet Explorer: Fix IE8 DEP Crashes

Well, now we have IE8.  Wonderful.  I was bored of the mere half-dozen browsers we had to test against before. And there’s nothing to inspire confidence in a new version of IE like inexplicable crashes when it’s installed on a clean Windows XP SP3 machine:

(To the nitpickers out there: yes, that’s Windows 7, not Windows XP.  And no, this problem might not happen under Windows 7.  I’ve just browsed to res://ieframe.dll/acr_depnx_error.htm to get a screenshot of the error.  Trust me, under WinXP SP3, it happens.)

The error text is:

Internet Explorer has closed this webpage to help protect your computer

A malfunctioning or malicious add-on has caused Internet Explorer to close this webpage.

Windows Data Execution Prevention detected an add-on trying to use system memory incorrectly. This can be caused by a malfunction or a malicious add-on.

Ask Microsoft or Google, and they’ll just tell you exactly what the error itself tells you: an add-on screwed up.  And you know what?  They’re right.  Kind of.  Hell, maybe Flash or Acrobat is to blame for some of you out there.  Try disabling add-ons, see what happens.

But on a clean install of XP (read: no Adobe bullshit), I still got that message.  I disabled every add-on listed.  Same shit.  So what’s going on here, and who can I blame?

Believe it or not, I’m blaming this one on Sun!  I tracked the problem down to the Microsoft Virtual Machine, the old Java VM Microsoft was forced to stop developing and supporting thanks to Sun’s pointless legal assault.  God only knows why Sun would want Java less supported.  Perhaps it’s so the only way to run Java these days is through Sun’s VM, which reminds you, every fucking month like clockwork, that THERE’S A JAVA UPDATE AVAILABLE AND SUN IS AWESOME AND DOWNLOAD OPEN OFFICE NOW NOW NOW!

The solution: uninstall the Microsoft VM (which you should do anyway, it’s old and unsupported).  That fixes IE; I leave to you the decision whether it’s easier to live without Java or put up with Sun’s bullshit.

Luckily, there’s a tool Microsoft has that will remove the VM.  Get it here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/826878

Ha!  And you thought Microsoft had your back here!  You should know by know the entire IT world is against you all the time.  Try here:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Miscellaneous/MSJVM-Removal-Tool.shtml

Anyway, once you get this tool, just run it and pray you didn’t have anything that depended on that tool, because there’s no going back.

Internet Explorer: Why It Crashes And How To Fix It

Ah, Internet Explorer… the browser everyone loves to hate but can’t live without.

Why the hatred?  Well, it’s by Microsoft.  That alone is enough for some people.  It’s slow.  Not that it’s really that bad, it’s just that pretty much every other browser out there is faster.  It’s a pain in the ass to develop for: IE6, IE7, IE8, Quirks Mode, IE7 Standards Mode, IE8 Standards Mode, Compatibility View… I’m a developer, and I can’t even keep track of all the different modes IE renders in.  And of course, none of them are exactly right.

But it does have a few things going for it.  Amazingly, it’s probably the most secure browser out there right now – not because it was developed particularly well, but because after years upon years of bugs and security flaws, most problems have been found and fixed.  It has all the features a reasonable person would use, and (starting with IE8), has a great set of developer tools as well, nicely tucked away until you need them.  Oh… and it’s installed on every damn Windows PC on the planet.  That also helps.

So if it’s so well-tested and secure, why the inevitable crashes?  Simple: third party code.  Say what you will about Microsoft, but Microsoft code is a hell of a lot better than random third party code.  Microsoft has a vested interest in making their code rock-solid: they want it to work.  When it doesn’t, people get pissed off and go buy Macs.  Third party developers don’t have quite the same incentive: when third party code crashes, people usually still blame Microsoft, especially when it’s not obvious that third party code is running.

Want proof?  Read this entry on the IE team’s blog.  The key piece of information is that pretty graph.  The blue bars represent crashes caused by third party code – ActiveX controls, toolbars, and other plug-ins.  The red bars represent crashes IE is responsible for.  A mere 17 bugs are responsible for half of all IE crashes.  The top four, and 12 of the top 17, are caused by third party code.  Microsoft itself is only responsible for about 20% of these crashes.

While Microsoft can’t say this outright, there are plenty of clues pointing to the biggest culprits here: Adobe Flash and Adobe Reader.  These are two of the most common plug-ins out there, and they’re horribly written: just have a look at how much memory and CPU these programs use to perform relatively simple operations.  Flash, particularly, is absolutely fucking ridiculous for this.  There’s also an endless stream of security vulnerabilities caused by these plug-ins.  As I write this, there’s yet another flaw in Adobe Reader that allows a your system to become infected with a virus simply by opening a PDF file (or clicking on a PDF link) – and yes, viruses exploiting this are spreading like Australian wildfire.  Adobe won’t have a patch out for weeks at the earliest, despite this guy publishing his own patch without even having access to the source code.

So, next time IE crashes, don’t blame Microsoft.  Blame Adobe.  Want to fix it?  Here are some good starting points:

• Use Foxit Reader instead of Adobe Reader.  It’s faster, it’s smaller, it’s probably more secure (or at least less targeted), and it doesn’t crash IE. Kill Adobe Reader.
• Avoid Flash if at all possible.  Or, keep IE ‘clean’ and use Firefox for websites that require Flash.
• Keep your computer up to date.  Seems obvious, but so many people don’t do this, even those who know they should.  Run IE7 and check Windows Update.  When IE8 is out, get it.  Run the latest service pack for your OS.
• Uninstall or disable as many plug-ins as possible – preferably all of them.  Under later versions of IE, you can do this under Tools, Manage Add-ons.  Look on your Start menu for “Internet Explorer (No Add-ons)”.
• Running Windows 7?  Keep in mind you’re running a beta version of IE on top of a beta version of Windows.  Crashes come with the territory.  That said, Microsoft just released some updates that take care of quite a few problems; make sure you have these installed.

Hopefully this helps.

Internet Explorer: Enable Intranet Settings

On newer versions of Windows, you’ll see a message in IE’s Information Bar (the yellow thing at the top that pops down) talking about Intranet Settings.  Most people just click ‘Don’t Show Me this Again’ as they try to get rid of the endless pop-ups and questions IE presents upon its first few runs.  But what does this do, and what happens if you choose the wrong option?

Internet Explorer manages security through Zones.  Most pages you visit will be in the ‘Internet’ zone.  Other zones include Trusted Sites and Restricted Sites, and IE will adjust security settings accordingly.  Finally, there’s the Intranet zone.  This zone enables a few features that wouldn’t be used on the Internet, but are often used inside corporate networks and by software developers and network administrators.  Perhaps most importantly, Windows Authentication is enabled in the Intranet zone.  If you don’t need these features for anything, you’re better off leaving them disabled.  This is the default configuration, and this is how things are left if you choose ‘Don’t Show Me this Again’ from the Information Bar.

Without Intranet settings, though, you’ll find some things might not work properly.  ActiveX controls are handled differently, pages can be rendered differently, and Windows Authentication won’t work.  This means that if you browse to a web server that you should have access to through Windows Security or Active Directory, you’ll be denied access (or prompted for a password).  This will even happen if you’re running as an Administrator trying to access a web server running on your own machine.

To fix this, you need to enable Intranet settings.  If you’re running IE for the first time, you can just click ‘Enable Internet Settings’ from the pop-up.  If you’ve already chosen ‘Don’t Show Me this Again’, you’ll have to go elsewhere to make this change.  Go to Tools, Options, Security.  Select Local Intranet, and then click Sites:

Clear the ‘Automatically detect intranet network’ checkbox – you read that right, you want the box unchecked to enable Intranet settings – and review the other settings on that window:

You may have to restart IE for your changes to take effect.

At any time, you can check the zone of the site you’re browsing by looking at the status bar.  If it says ‘Internet’, you’re either on a site that’s not on your Intranet or you have Intranet settings disabled.  If it says ‘Local intranet’, Windows Authentication should work.

Internet Explorer: Improving Load Times

Often, Internet Explorer will freeze for a few seconds before loading.  This can also happen when opening a new tab.  You’ll see this on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and even Windows 7.  It will happen under IE6, IE7, and IE8.  Occasionally, these delays can even be minutes long, giving the impression that IE has frozen.  Often, you’ll see IE sit and do nothing while it says ‘Connecting…’.

It’s at this time you typically start screaming and throwing things, saying “Fucking IE is entirely unusable.  Why the hell aren’t I using Firefox?'”.  Of course, with IE still frozen, you can’t download Firefox, so you’re stuck there muttering to yourself until IE decides to quick screwing around, at which point you forget about Firefox and just go do your work.

There’s a simple fix.  In Internet Explorer (once it actually loads), go to Tools, Options, Connections:

Click LAN Settings, then clear the ‘Automatically detect settings’ checkbox:

That should do it.

If you’re still having trouble, your problem is almost certainly caused by an add-on (Adobe Flash, a toolbar, the Office Research add-on, anti-virus add-ons, etc.).  To check this, try running Internet Explorer with No Add-ons.  You’ll find a shortcut for this on your Start menu.  IE8 has a great Manage Add-ons feature that you might want to play with, too; you can enable and disable add-ons here; even if you’re not having problems, disabling add-ons you don’t use can improve performance dramatically:

Unfortunately, one of the biggest causes of crashes, hangs, poor performance, and security vulnerabilities when it comes to web browsers is an Add-on that’s pretty tough to live without: Adobe Flash.  Until Adobe gets their act together, there’s not much you can do about this one.