Explorer Takeovers

Has your Internet Explorer been taken over? No, not by aliens, by something far worse - a big company. Maybe they've stuck a message in your title bar or perhaps they've even replaced your beloved spinning "e" with (gasp) their own logo. (That spinning logo is actually called a "throbber" - no kidding!)

If your Internet Explorer is a corporate abductee, don't worry - I've been there too. Until I discovered this little trick, one of our computers would display the page title and follow it up with "Provided by Compaq". How nice of them to provide me with every page on the internet.

Well, do you want to reclaim your browser? Are you ready to take back what's yours?

To make Explorer look like its default self again, do the following:

1. Make sure you don't have a browser window open.

2. Hit the Start button, Run

3. Type in this line (or better yet, copy & paste):

rundll32.exe iedkcs32.dll,Clear

Click OK

You'll discover that absolutely nothing seems to happen. However, before you decide I'm telling you to type in gibberish just to see if you'll actually do it, open Explorer and check it out.

You should find it looks very default now. No company logos, no extra corporate comments in your title bar.

PS - If anyone knows how to change the little throbber (spinning logo), let me know. I've never run across a way to do that.

Posted in: Internet Tips