Internet Explorer

About :

Internet Explorer is a commonly used network – based application. It’s main function is to provide a graphical and user friendly access to internet to wide range of users. This application is majory used on Windows operated consoles but in isn’t a rule. It is fast, easy to use and in does not consume much of the memory resources. Internet in the past was not the same as it is now. It used to be run by command line applications but nowadays thans to Internet Explorer, anyone can surf the internet, pictures can be viewed and files can be trasfered. Today, the latest version is Internet Explorer 6.0 and it has become much safer comparing to the past versions. This is because it uses 128bit encryption. This enables users to do internet banking, online shops or safe data transfers.

It is much faster then before. In the past, Internet Explorer was based in IPX protocol. This is an old – fashioned way to exchange data on internet. Nowadays it uses TCP / IP protocol and it tends to be much faster that ever.

How IE works:

It is just a simple application that downloads data from a specific address on the internet and then the data is translated and formulated to the state you can see on the screen. This way of encoding is called HTML – Hypertext Markup Language and it is the key to new way of communication.



About IE’s features:

Whole application consists of MENU BAR (MB), TOOL BAR (TB) and the ADDRESS BAR (AB). MB is the top part on the screen and it is used to execute all of the functions and setups. TB is a bar full of icons that are just shortcuts to some of these functions. AB is probably on of the commonly used fetures because that is the place where you input the link to a webpage. File menu:

 New, Open, Edit, Save, Save as
 Page setup, Print, Print preview
 Send, Import and Export
 Properties, Work offline, Close

Funcions like New …. are similar to all other Windows applications. Page setup, Print preview and Print are used to setup printing properties and to execute printing. It is also similar to other apps. Send is a feature which sends the currently displayed link or webpage by email or sends shortcut to desktop. Properties show the information about page displayed.

Edit menu:

 Cut, Copy, Paste, Select All, Find (on This Page)

These functions are the classical clipboard operators that use the Cut & Paste functions and search page for strings and whole words.

View menu:

 Toolbars, Status Bars, Explorer Bar
 Go to, Stop, Search
 Text Size, Encoding
 Source, Privacy Report
 Script Debugger, Full Screen, Java Console

Toolbars and other …bar options are used to control amount of menus displayed on the screen. Goto executes the link writen in the ADDRESS BAR and Stop stops the network processes of Internet Explorer. The most important part of this menu is the Text Size where user can set the size of the text standardly displayed. Encoding is very problematic feature of IE because once you set that your webpage is going to be displayed in Central European (ISO) and someone will view the page in Unicode, the surfing individual will not be able to read everything as long as his IE is not set to Autodetect and not even this always works, especially with our Slavic alphabet.

The other functions are not commonly used by ordinary users. They are used just to tune up some problematic webpages.

Favourities:

 Add to Favourities
 Organise Favourities

Favourities are the favourite links of the user. If user gets through a interesting or important website, the site may be stored by adding it to Favourities.

Tools menu:

 Mail and News, Synchronize, Windows Update
 Show Related Links
 Internet Options

Main and News are used to work with Outlook Express what is the email client – a sister application of IE. Synchronize is a function that helps user to synchronize the off-line stuff on the hard-drive so the off-line surfing becomes much faster. Internet Options:

This is a special category where user sets his settings and preferences so the IE works properly and suits the user’s needs.



The general tab has thre parts. The homepage, where user sets his homepage. Temporary internet files are files that are temporarily stored on user’s hard-drive. This makes the internet surfing faster and smoother. Cookies are special files where information are stored. These information contain messages or words that IE uses to help the user to browse faster. History is used to track all the sites where the user have been in past. This means that if you do not remember what website have you been to three days ago you may just have a look in the history files.

 Colors, Fonts, Languages, Accessibility

These menus are used to setup the outlook of the IE. For example user may change the color of toolbars to purple or the default font may be Arial and not the Times New Roman.




The security tab is used to setup the security options. For example how should be the LAN secured, what sites are restricted for the user (for example sites with content not suitable for children).

These settings also prevent spreading of viruses because once you do not allow this kind of sites, you can not view themand therefore viruses will not enter your computer.















The other menus are not very important but the Auto Complete section in Content menu is worth of mentioning.



What it does is that it shores the data that you enter in the input fields and it may also store password if it is set so. This may fasten surfing alot.

The other parts of the menu are:

 Connection, Programs, Advanced

These sections are not very important for ordinary users because these are the places where you setup the way of connection to Internet Provider, where you tune the IE application and where you setup the sister-programs to cooperate with the Internet Explorer.

The last part of the menu is the Help. That is the place whre user may find support from the authors of the application and where user sould go when some troubleshooting is expected. Herefrom it is also possible to update the application.