Managing Internet Explorer plug-ins: The secret to stability

Gadget News - Wednesday December 12, 2007

Managing Internet Explorer plug-ins: The secret to stability

By Jay Dougherty

Washington (dpa) - Everyone knows the story: When Internet Explorer (IE) is first installed, it flies. The browser itself opens quickly, and pages load without incident.

But after awhile, things start to break down. The browser crashes, freezes, or loads slowly. Sometimes it won't load at all. Typically the blame falls on security holes in IE. But there are usually other, less mysterious causes: plug-ins.

Like it or not, until you get a handle on what plug-ins are and how you manage them, your Web browsing experience with Internet Explorer is likely going to be laced with frustration.

Yes, you could ditch IE altogether and move to Mozilla's Firefox, but most Firefox users swear by plug-ins, so there's really no escape from plug-in issues there, either.

What are plug-ins?

The plug-in concept is fairly straightforward. Also known as add- ins, plug-ins are small programs developed by third parties that tie in closely with the browser, enabling it to view documents or do things that otherwise it could not. After a plug-in is installed, it loads whenever the browser starts up.

Most plug-ins will ask your permission to be installed. Others, however, manage to sneak their way into your browser by means of an installation of a program that you didn't know would affect your browser. Recent versions of Skype are examples of this.

If you've used IE for several months, you might have a dozen or more plug-ins installed and not even know it. The "not even know it" part is what's bad. Since plug-ins can not only add needed features but also cause a browser to become less stable. Recent versions of Skype, for instance, install two add-ins to Internet Explorer - and they can cause the browser to crash when you visit certain pages on the Internet. So you need to know which plug-ins you're browsing with.

Identifying plug-ins

In IE, identifying your plug-ins is the first step toward getting them under control. To see which plug-ins are installed in IE, either version 6 or 7, open the Tools menu, and select Manage Add-ons. "Add- on" is the term that IE uses for plug-in. The resulting Manage Add- ons dialog box will show you exactly which plug-ins have been installed and give you the option of disabling anything that's listed.

To disable a plug-in, first select it, and then click the Disable option button that will appear in the Settings section. You can disable on plug-in at a time or a series of them, one by one. Click OK, and your changes will take effect.

If you're having trouble with your browser, start by disabling all of the plug-ins that are installed. Then close the browser and open it up again. See whether the problems have disappeared. If so, enable the plug-ins one by one until you find the culprit. Once you do, keep it disabled.

Essential plug-ins

Not all plug-ins cause trouble, of course. There are some plug-ins that are absolutely essential to be able to search the Internet efficiently today. First is the Adobe Reader plug-in, which is installed automatically when you visit http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html and follow the installation instructions. This is probably one of the first things that IE users should install. Frequently today, you'll run across links that take you to a document in the PDF format, which will be visible only with the Adobe Reader.

Another essential plug-in is IE7 Pro (http://www.ie7pro.com), which adds several sanity-saving features to Internet Explorer. The most important of these is session restoration. Let's say you've been working in IE 7, for instance, with several tabs open, and all of a sudden the browser crashes, taking with it the collection of Web pages you had open and needed in order to get your work done.

With the standard IE installation, such a crash would require you to bring back up everything you had open. With IE7Pro's session restoration, you can restart IE with all of the browser pages open to where you had them. IE7Pro has a lot of other useful features, including a flash blocker, pop-up blocker, and its own plug-in manager.

Internet Explorer has never had a spell checker - an odd omission, given the number of times Web users are asked to type lengthy text passages into browser forms. Luckily, Red Egg Software's ieSpell (http://www.windowsmarketplace.com/details.aspx?view=info&itemid=1513 531) addresses that shortcoming. This free plug-in does exactly what you would expect: allows you to spell-check text that's typed into text boxes online. It's free.

Inline Search (http://www.ieforge.com/InlineSearch/Home page) is another handy, free plug-in for IE. The normal Find dialog box in IE frequently hides the very information you're searching for on a Web page. Inline Search gives IE a feature that Firefox users enjoy every day: a Find text box in the status bar that will allow you to search for any text on a Web page without obscuring the page itself with a dialog box.

Clearly plug-ins aren't all bad. But these days, you do need to know how to manage them - and disable them - to troubleshoot some of the most annoying problems with IE. Be sure to install plug-ins one at a time, and use the browser for a while before deeming the plug-in installation a success.

Bangkok Post