Windows 95 Microsoft Internet Explorer

[Princesex Voskamp]

InternetExplorer is designed to make it easy to browse and interact with websites on your intranet or on the Internet. Whenever you use the Internet, or software with Internet enabled features, information about your PC ("standard PC information") is sent to the websites you visit and online services you use. Standard PC information includes your PC's IP address, browser type and language, access times, and referring website addresses. This information might be logged on those sites' web servers. Which information is logged and how that information is used depends on the privacy practices of the websites you visit and web services you use.

ActiveX Controls are pieces of software that supplement how your browser works. For example, some ActiveX Controls can play audio, video, or show images on a webpage. These controls may have an impact on the performance, security, and reliability of Internet Explorer. ActiveX Filtering lets you browse the web with these controls turned off. When you view a webpage that has had ActiveX Controls filtered out, some content on the page might be turned off.

If you choose to turn on ActiveX Filtering, you can turn ActiveX Controls back on for a single website by clicking the ActiveX Filtering icon in the address bar. When you turn off ActiveX Filtering on a website, Internet Explorer stores the address of the website on which you have chosen to turn off ActiveX Filtering. You can delete this data at any time with Delete Browsing History.

Internet Explorer includes Adobe Flash Player. Certain Flash Player features may gather information about your PC or ask permission to use your PC's hardware features. Additional information about these features can be found here.

This feature in Internet Explorer is designed for use by developers and IT professionals to determine the compatibility of their websites with Internet Explorer. When you activate this feature, Internet Explorer logs data points about your interaction with webpages in an event log, which can be viewed with the Windows Event Viewer. These events describe failures that might have happened on the site and can include information about specific controls and webpages that failed. By default, this information can be viewed by all users on the PC unless an administrator restricts this access. For more information about logs and the use of the Windows Event Viewer, search Windows Help for "Event Viewer".

The AutoComplete feature in Internet Explorer lets you more quickly fill out web forms and go to websites you have visited in the past. AutoComplete collects and stores in the registry on your PC the data you type in web form text boxes and the address bar. AutoComplete information isn't shared with other user accounts on your PC.

As you browse the web, Automatic Crash Recovery in Internet Explorer stores information about your browsing session on your hard disk in the event of a crash, hang, or other unexpected shutdown. If your browsing session is shut down unexpectedly, Internet Explorer offers you the opportunity to resume your last browsing session.

Turning off Automatic Crash Recovery doesn't prevent Internet Explorer from saving information about your tabs; it only turns off the recovery of your tabs or browsing session. None of this information is sent to Microsoft unless you choose to send it, such as in an error report.

Lists of websites that were designed for older or other browsers, which allow Internet Explorer to automatically adjust how it renders or communicates with those websites in order to improve compatibility and provide for a better user experience on those sites.

Lists of websites that use Adobe Flash Player in ways that are known to be incompatible with Internet Explorer, so that Flash Player can be turned off for those websites. For more information on Flash Player, see the section on Adobe Flash Player earlier in this document.

If you choose this option, Internet Explorer will periodically download an updated list of Compatibility settings from Microsoft, and standard PC information will be sent. You can turn off Compatibility List Updates at any time.

Compatibility View helps make websites designed for older browsers look better when viewed in Internet Explorer. If you choose to view a website in Compatibility View, as a convenience to you, Internet Explorer will remember this choice and use Compatibility View the next time you visit the site. You can clear the list of websites you've chosen to display in Compatibility View by using Delete Browsing History in Internet Explorer or the Compatibility View Settings dialog box.

A cookie is a small text file that is placed on your hard disk by a website. Cookies are uniquely assigned to you, and can only be read by a website or web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you. Cookies can't be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your PC.

A cookie is often used to personalize your visit to a website or to save you time. For example, to facilitate a purchase the cookie could contain shopping cart information such as your current selection, as well as contact information such as your name or email address. To help websites track individual visitors, cookies often contain a unique identifier. It is up to the website that created the cookie to disclose to you what information is stored in the cookie and how that information is used.

You can accept or decline cookies. If you decide to block one or more cookies, the websites that use them might not function correctly. For example, if you don't allow cookies at all, you might not be able to view some websites or take advantage of customization features (such as local news and weather, or stock quotes).

Blocking all cookies might prevent you from accessing many websites. The next two Internet Explorer privacy levels, High and Medium High, might be more suitable. In addition, it is possible to block a cookie for a specific site by clicking Sites on the Privacy tab. For more information, see Internet Explorer Help.

Enhanced Protected Mode provides additional security for Internet Explorer by making it more difficult for malicious software to run in Internet Explorer. Enhanced Protected Mode is turned on by default for Internet Explorer.

Internet Explorer allows websites to display portions of their web content in full-screen mode. Internet Explorer will inform you if a website wants to display content in full-screen mode. You may allow this full screen experience for the current visit to the site or all visits to the site. You may also decline for the current visit. Internet Explorer stores the addresses of the websites on which you have chosen to allow the full screen experience for all visits. You can delete these addresses at any time with Delete Browsing History.

Browsing patterns on some sites are typical for most people. For example, people tend to click the first result on a search results page. On a news website, they are likely to click the first news story. If an article has multiple pages, users are likely to click a link to go to the next page of the article.

Internet Explorer tells you when it blocks webpages known to be malicious. In order to do this, Internet Explorer will periodically download a list of malicious URLs from Microsoft. When a URL is blocked, you will be redirected to a Microsoft webpage which will receive standard PC information and the URL of the page hosting malicious content.

Manage Add-ons in Internet Explorer lets you view, turn on, and turn off the list of add-ons that can be loaded by Internet Explorer. Add-ons you can manage include browser helper objects, ActiveX controls, toolbar extensions, explorer bars, browser extensions, search providers, Accelerators, and Tracking Protection settings.

Some add-ons could collect information from your PC or otherwise impact your privacy. If an add-on you're using is provided by a company other than Microsoft, the use of any information collected will be subject to that company's privacy practices. If you choose to turn off an add-on, the add-on might require you to restart Internet Explorer for the change to take effect.

If an add-on is turned off or deleted, website pages that rely on that add-on may not work as expected. For more information about add-ons, click the Learn more about toolbars and extensions help link in Manage Add-ons.

Internet Explorer tells you when it finds and blocks portions of webpages loading common, but out-of-date ActiveX controls. In order to do this, Internet Explorer will periodically download a list of out-of-date ActiveX controls from Microsoft, and standard PC information will be sent to Microsoft. For more information, see Out-of-date ActiveX controls.

When you type in your user name and password for websites in Internet Explorer, Internet Explorer will ask if you would like it to remember your login credentials. If you choose to have Internet Explorer remember your credentials for the website, they'll be stored in encrypted form on your PC in the Windows credential locker and will be automatically filled in credential input fields on secure sites.

Note: Some sites choose to turn off AutoComplete for privacy reasons. Internet Explorer will honor sites that choose to turn off AutoComplete on input forms that don't collect credentials. For forms that do collect credentials, Internet Explorer will always prompt you before storing them.

The Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) feature enables playback of Microsoft PlayReady protected media content in Internet Explorer. This feature requires storage of DRM data on your PC, including an anonymous unique identifier and any protected media playback licenses you may have acquired. This anonymous identifier and other data can be retrieved by websites you visit that host protected audio or video content licensed through a PlayReady server. This retrieval is necessary to support playback of this content, and the information exchanged is anonymous.

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