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Make Internet Explorer run faster

The Web is a sparkling achievement of modern society. It’s everywhere—from the home to the classroom. We use it to communicate, to work, to play—even to waste time when there’s nothing else to do.

Yet there’s nothing more frustrating than having this technical marvel at our fingertips 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, only to watch our computers access the Internet at a crawling pace. Thankfully, Microsoft Internet Explorer provides some useful options for quicker Web surfing. Let’s look at these options now.

Reduce the size of your Web page history

Internet Explorer stores visited Web pages to your computer, organizing them within a page history by day. While it’s useful to keep a couple days of Web history within your computer, there’s no need to store more than a week’s worth. Any more than that and you’re collecting Web pages that will slow down your computer’s performance.

To reduce your Web page history:

  1. In Internet Explorer, on the Tools menu, click Internet Options.

  2. In the Internet Options dialog box, in the History section, find the Days to keep pages in history: box. Type “1″ in this box, as pictured in the image below. Click OK.

    Image of the Internet Options dialog box

    Reduce the number of days to keep pages in history.

Don’t save encrypted Web pages

Encrypted Web pages ask for usernames and passwords. These pages scramble information to prevent the reading of this sensitive information. You can define Internet Explorer to not save these types of pages. You’ll free up space by saving fewer files to your computer, as well as keeping secure information off your computer.

To not save encrypted Web pages:

  1. In Internet Explorer, on the Tools menu, click Internet Options.

  2. In the Internet Options dialog box, click the Advanced tab.

  3. In the Settings section, scroll down to the Security section. Check the “Do not save encrypted pages to disk” option, as shown in the figure below. Click OK.

    Image of the Advanced tab of the Internet Options dialog box

    Set up Internet Explorer so that you do not save encrypted Web pages.

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