If you commonly use MS Internet Explorer to browse the web, you might like to consider using one of the many alternative interfaces programs out there which improve your browsing experience.

Why would you bother downloading one of these programs?

Well the only one I have extensive experience with is MyIE2 so I will describe this one -

• it is free
• it has an MDI interface - geek speak for it load all the web site windows in tabs within the program's window so that you don't clog up the bar down the bottom of the screen where there is a button for each open window
• they supress all those annoying advertising popups that plague so many sites
• it has the ability to open multiple sites at one by grouping them e.g I always visit Merlot, e-learning post, serious instructional technology and e-learning centre as a group each day
• it has built in easy to find and use tools for cleaning the cache, cookies, history, form autofill
• like many of it competitors, it is aimed at a multilingual audience and has easy methods to translate web pages into a variety of languages on the fly - great for student with ESL needs, or for us poor monolingual sods
• it has a tools menu which can be used to open related tools, eg a password manager, or Webcatcher (see my earlier article on keeping your own web archives organised and accessible)
• it is developed by a small group responsive to user requests
• and my favourite - it has the facility to unclose a window you have closed by mistake :-)

If you use Mozilla or Opera, then you probably enjoy most of these features. But if you are wedded to MS Internet Explorer, which does have certain benefits not available in other browsers, then do yourself a favour and use a more functional, friendly and efficient interface.

You can find MyIE2 and a number of other similar programs at many download sites. My fave is

http://www.webattack.com/freeware/misctools/fwbrowser.shtml