Three ways to be a better browser

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Have you ever sat back and calculated how much time you spend on the Internet, whether for work or for pleasure? For some of us it’s a great deal of time. What’s more, all of us are prone to sticking with old habits and ways of doing things, a tendency that actually can make browsing the Internet an inefficient and possibly unsafe process.

Since I’m sure we’d all like to save a little time and effort when it comes to navigating the web, not to mention keep our business and its data secure, here are some great power tips to use with Internet Explorer 9. They might break you out of your normal browsing behavior, but they are sure to reward you with some time back at the end of the day.

  • Pin popular websites: For quicker access to your favorite sites, start pinning them to your desktop. From One Box (just another word for address bar), click the icon to the left of the web address and drag it to your taskbar. Doing so enables you to launch your favorite sites immediately, even without opening Internet Explorer.
  • Manage add-ons: If you’ve installed add-ons with IE 9, you might be noticing notifications about these add-ons, which can affect the performance of your browser. For better control over your add-ons and to see if there are any you want to disable or remove, click the Tools menu, then click Manage Add-ons. From here you can view all of your Add-ons and determine which are essential to your everyday work, and which could be slowing you down.
  • Use your SmartScreen filter: IE 9 comes with built-in protection for navigating the Web; by turning on your SmartScreen filter (and ensuring employees do the same), you’ll automatically launch tools that protect against malware and phishing. The SmartScreen filter also removes all unnecessary warnings for well-known files but does maintain severe warnings for high-risk downloads.

I hope these tips have shown you some new ways to browse the web more safely and efficiently, though I’m also curious if anyone else has tips to share. Any time-saving discoveries the rest of us need to know about?