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[Download] Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 Security Fix (KB2744842) – Critical Update

September 22, 2012 by dennis

We had issued and advisory earlier that the Internet Explorer 9 and lower versions are facing a security flaw where the attackers may exploit the bug, targeting hundreds of millions of computers, to infect the PC of somebody who visits a malicious website and then take control of the victim’s computer. Well this issue has been fixed.

Internet Explorer 9

Microsoft promised that the fix will be available by Friday, 21 September. Well they kept their promise but with some variations. Microsoft had said that this is an easy fix and it will not even require a reboot. Well that’s not true. The Critical update details say:

Security issues have been identified that could allow an attacker to compromise a system that is running Microsoft Internet Explorer and gain control over it. You can help protect your system by installing this update from Microsoft. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

windows-security-update

The Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer 9 for Windows 7 (KB2744842) will be fixing the issue. This update is available in Windows Update. You can directly update it from your Windows PC.

If you don’t use Windows Update service. you can still download it from Microsoft. Choose the correct Windows Version while downloading.

Download from Microsoft

Microsoft Internet Explorer 9–Security Flaws, Bugs and Fixes? Use or Dump? [Advisory]

September 19, 2012 by dennis

The German government urged the public on Tuesday to temporarily stop using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer after a bug was discovered which is yet-to-be repaired. The German government’s Federal Office for Information Security, or BSI, said it was aware of targeted attacks and that all that was needed was to lure Web surfers to a website where hackers had planted malicious software that exploited the bug.

This security flaw in IE may enable attackers to exploit the bug, targeting hundreds of millions of computers, to infect the PC of somebody who visits a malicious website and then take control of the victim’s computer.

Our advisory in using the IE browsers except IE10 are:

Though IE browsers are considered to be most secure ones, we advise for now you look at others
The IE big fix will be released in the next few days by Microsoft and will be available for download only then
There have been a few attempts to exploit the bug, but German officials claim that this issue can be misused in large scale hacking
Users should take proactive actions to ensure that their PCs are well protected
For time being we advise all users to download and install the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) version 3.0 which is designed to help prevent hackers from gaining access to your system

Microsoft claims that the Fix will be an easy-to-use, one-click, full-strength solution any Internet Explorer user can install and it won’t even require a reboot of your computer.

We hope that the Fix is releases ASAP and we are sure that Microsoft is working on it.

[Tip] Turn Off The Clicking Navigation Sound In Internet Explorer

March 5, 2011 by bharath

If you use Internet Explorer frequently, you might be aware of the annoying click sound that the browser generates whenever you click a link in the webpage, use back or forward buttons or when you type a URL and press enter. If you observer closely, this is the same sound that comes when you are browsing the Windows explorer windows as well. This happens so because whenever you click something in Internet Explorer or Windows explorer, it will trigger the “System Navigation” event of the system sounds. As always, you can completely disable this sound both for Windows explorer and Internet Explorer. But let’s confine ourselves to the Internet Explorer for now, in the wake of the latest IE9 release. Follow the steps briefed below to disable the clicking navigation sound in the Internet Explorer 9.

Steps:

1. Click on the settings icon found on the top right corner of the Internet Explorer. Choose “Internet options” from the menu.

2. A new “Internet Options” window opens up. Go to the “Advanced” tab in the window. Uncheck against “Play system sounds” under the settings for “Accessibility”.

System sounds from internet options in IE9

Click “Ok” to apply the changes and close the window. Now the click navigation sound in the Internet Explorer gets disabled (If you to enable it back, just choose the option shown in the above screenshot and save the settings). However, the clicking navigation sound in the Windows explorer will still continue to exist. We’ll see how to completely turn off or mute these navigation sounds for Windows explorer completely in the upcoming posts.

[Tip] Change Internet Explorer 9 Search Provider

February 24, 2011 by bharath

If you have already downloaded and installed the Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) on your computer, you might well be aware that there’s no search sidebar in IE9. IE9 lets you search directly from the address bar so much so in the similar way Google Chrome does. You can also see the suggestions as you type (along with suggestions) in the address bar. But the problem here is by Bing set as the default search engine by default and most of the beginners will have tough time in figuring out how to change this default search engine to their liking, say Google. Here is a small tutorial explaining you the exact procedure to follow to change the default search engine in the Internet Explorer.

1. Type your search query in the IE9 address bar and click on “Add” button that you can see under the search suggestions (from Bing by default).

Icon of your current search engine is shown at the extreme left below the suggestions. As you can see from the above screenshot, it is Bing in my case and it should be in most of the cases as well.

2. You will now be taken to IE add-ons gallery page where you will find a whole lot of available search providers.

Locate your favorite and click on the “Add to Internet Explorer” link present next to it. All of the search providers listed there offer search suggestion as well.

3. In the new window that pops up, choose both the options (“Make this my default search provider” and “Use search suggestions from this provider”) and click the “Add” button.

That is it. We have successfully change the search provider in the Internet Explorer 9. And as you can see Google is my default search engine now!

[Download] Internet Explorer 9 Release Candidate

February 10, 2011 by bharath

Microsoft has just released the release candidate version of the Internet Explorer 9 for Windows 7 and Windows Vista operating systems. The first public beta of Internet Explorer 9 was released in September 2010. So that was like nearly five months ago. Microsoft has stated that there were more than 2,000 changes incorporated since the release of IE9 beta. Here are the few new feature improvements in the Internet Explorer 9 release candidate.

>> Improved JavaScript Engine (Chakra) Performance

>> Dynamic GPU Usage

>> Lesser Power Consumption Levels

>> ‘Do Not Track’ feature

Other minor improvements include the increase of temporary internet files size from 50 MB to 250 MB.

Download IE9 RC:

Download the Internet Explorer 9 RC (Build 9.00.8080.16413) online setup (from the below links) which needs an active internet connection to download and install the browser on your Windows.

Windows 7 32-bit

Windows 7 64-bit

Windows Vista 32-bit

Windows Vista 64-bit

For more information on IE9 RC release, read this blog post on official IE9 blog.

[Tip] Reset Internet Explorer Settings

October 15, 2010 by bharath

Internet explorer logo

If you have been using Internet Explorer (IE7, IE8 & IE9) for long, it’s quite obvious that you might have added many customizations, add-ons etc. You have become its master, it does what you instruct. But a day comes where the scene goes out of your hand, Internet Explorer does respond and behaves in an unexpected manner. Doesn’t open the websites, throwing errors at your face which you never want to see like “Internet Explorer has “encountered a problem and needs to close” or “ Visual C++ “runtime error” has occurred in Iexplore.exe”, it either stops responding or even worse, it crashes! Whatever may be the cause of these errors, they are really annoying. The first thing that you should do in such a situation is to disable the add-ons that are known to cause these problems. Even though, this may solve the issue for now, the ideal option however is to reset the IE settings. This will automatically deletes all the add-ons and customizations and makes your Internet Explorer like a freshly installed version. Follow the steps explained below to reset the IE settings on your computer.

Steps:

1. Start the Internet Explorer.

2. Open Internet Options via Alt button> Tools. Go to Advanced tab in the Internet Options.

3. Click on the Reset button available at the bottom of the window to reset your IE settings.

Reset IE settings in Internet Explorer

4. IE will start resetting the settings, wait until it gets finished and click Close in the Reset Internet Explorer Settings dialog box.

Restart your Internet Explorer to see the changes. IE should behave in the usual way from now on.

[Download] IE8 & IE9 Compatibility View List

April 17, 2011October 10, 2010 by bharath

Internet explorer logo

Even though we are in the age of Internet Explorer 9 , there are still handful of websites that were designed specifically for use with IE7 (or even IE6!) and which may break when rendered in the Inter Explorer 8.

To solve the issues with such websites, Microsoft has included “Compatibility Mode” in IE8. Whenever the browser finds that the URL entered by the user points to a website that is mostly compatibility with IE7 and older versions, the browser will quickly switch to the Compatibility Mode to render the content as it would be seen in the older versions of the Internet Explorer.

IE8 (as well as IE9) maintains a native list of websites that are to be rendered “Compatibility Mode”. To view this Compatibility view list in your browser, type the following in the address bar:

res://iecompat.dll/iecompatdata.xml (IE8)

File:\\%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\IECompatData\iecompatdata.xml(IE9)

You can also add your own websites to the list (IE8 or IE9) by clicking on the Alt button > Tools > Compatibility View Settings:

compatibility view settings

Microsoft now and then updates the Compatibility View List by including or removing websites to the list. It is rather surprising to find that websites from Microsoft own domain are featured in the list (Microsoft.com and Live.com). Download the latest Compatibility View lists in (xls format) for IE8 and IE9 from the links given below:

IE8 Compatibility View List (Updated on 04/17/11 – Link expired)

IE9 Compatibility View List

[Tip] Swap Stop And Refresh Button Position In IE9

October 7, 2010 by bharath

We have been covering a lot of articles about Internet Explorer 9 beta which is refreshingly new and offering seamless integration with Windows 7. In this post, we have come up with a tutorial on how to move the Stop and Refresh button to the left of the of the address bar in IE9.

Internet Explorer until now used to show the Stop and Refresh buttons on the immediate right to the address bar. The same has been followed in IE9 as well. But Microsoft was smart this time and decided to give the users the flexibility of choosing the position of these button in their IE9. You might very well be knowing that Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome does show these Stop and Refresh buttons towards the left of the address bar (immediate left before the address bar), as shown here:

Firefox:

Chrome:

[In Google Chrome, you will only see either one of the Stop or Refresh buttons at any instant. While the page is loading, Stop button is shown and the Refresh button takes its place as soon as the page gets loaded completely.]

If you are an avid user of Firefox and Chrome and want these Stop And Refresh buttons in the same as way as in Firefox and Chrome, follow the instructions shown:

Steps:

1. Open the Internet Explorer 9

2. Right-click on the IE9 tab bar and choose “Move Stop and Refresh”.

3. That is it! You can now see the Stop and Refresh buttons appearing towards the left of the address bar as shown:

It’s that easy! For more tips on IE9 and Windows, subscribe to Techrena.net feeds via Email or follow @techrena or become a fan of Techrena.net at facebook.com/techrena.

[Tip] Prevent Programs From Changing Default Search Engine In IE9

October 7, 2010October 4, 2010 by bharath

IE9 beta logo

Once you have set a default search engine in your browser, it should remain as it is, right ? But it’s not always like that some programs can easily change your default search engine in your default browser just by adding some keys to your windows registry. It has always been a big problem. Imagine like you install a program like Yahoo Messenger (changes default search engine to Yahoo) or Windows Live Essentials (changes default search to Bing), are just examples of such programs. Even though many of these programs do prompt you when they are going to change your browser (Internet Explorer here), we can hardly notice it as it’ll be asked during the program installation and most of the time we does this in a hurry without exploring all the options provided during the installation.

In this post, I’m going to guide you about how to prevent programs from changing your default search engine in case of the Internet Explorer 9.

1. Open the Internet Explorer.

2. Click on Tools icon(Found on the top right corner of the window).

3. Select “Manage add-ons” from the menu items.

Tools menu IE9

Alternative you can access the same settings from the “Tools” sections in the IE9 menu bar.

4. In the Manage Add-ons window, click “Search Providers” in the left pane.

Manage addons in IE9 left pane

5. Select your default search engine (Google in my case), you will find an option “Prevent programs from suggesting changes to my default search provider”. Check against it and close the window.

That is it. Now your default search engine in IE9 (& IE8) can’t be changed by any program. You might also want to read how to change the address bar search provider in Firefox.

[Tip] Clear Cookies And Cache For A Particular Domain In IE9

September 29, 2010 by bharath

Internet Explorer 9

Microsoft’s latest innovation Internet Explorer 9 is slowly turning out to be the best ever browser that the Redmond based software giant has ever produced. With all the positive reviews creeping in from most of the users and experts, IE9 can now be viewed as the browser that will dominate the internet in the upcoming years. If you haven’t explored IE9 fully, yet there’s absolutely no reason why you should start doing it right away now.

There’s one useful feature in IE9 that most of us might not be aware of. Until now to delete cookies in the browser, we needed to delete the entire browser cache, in the same way, to delete cookies, we had to delete all the stored cookies. It’s not the same anymore with IE9. Thanks to IE9 developer tools, you can now clear cookies or clear cache for a particular single domain in Internet Explorer 9. It can be done if you follow the steps briefed below:

1. Open the Internet Explorer 9.

2. Press F12 to open the Developer tools. You may also access this via Tools (by pressing ALT) > F12 developer tools menu item.

3. In the developer tools, you will see two options:

i) Clear cache for this domain

ii) Clear cookies for domain

Clear cookies and cache for this domain in IE9

These two options are very much handy especially if you are a developer.