Load Internet Explorer, click Tools,
Internet Options & select the General tab.
Home page.
This specifies the Internet Explorer homepage. A specific
address can be entered in the Address field if
desired. Alternatively, pressing the Use Current
button will set the currently loaded page as homepage.
Use Default sets that the installation defined
default homepage be used (This may be a Microsoft
website, or the PC manufacturers site for example). Use
Blank specifies that a blank page be used as home page.
Temporary Internet files. Now click the Settings button.
Check for newer versions of stored pages.
When viewing a webpage, data is cached into the temporary
internet files folder, this setting determines how Internet
Explorer checks whether it has the latest version of a
cached file when returning to a previously viewed page.
Every visit to the page.
This specifies that Internet Explorer will check for new
data each time the page is loaded. This can result in longer
loading times but ensures the page you are viewing isn’t out
of date.
Every time you start Internet Explorer.
This option specifies that Internet Explorer will check for
new data only during a new Internet Explorer session or the
day after, i.e. if you load a webpage that you had
previously viewed 1 hour ago without restarting Internet
Explorer it won’t check for updated versions of cached data
for that page.
Automatically.
This option performs as the pervious option but also will
reduce the frequency of checking for updated data on pages
where the content is changed infrequently.
Never.
Selecting this option specifies that Internet Explorer will
not check for newer versions of cached data. This can make
the chances of viewing old content on sites very likely, so
try not to use this should you have a high cache size.
Personally I’d recommend setting this to Every visit to
the page, particularly if bandwidth isn’t a
consideration (i.e. you’re not on dial-up). Those on V.92 or
slower modems would be better served by selecting Every
time you start Internet Explorer or Automatically.
Amount of disk space to use.
This field specifies the size, in MBs, of the temporary
internet files folder. This is used to cache all data for
the webpages you view. Should you visit certain websites
repeatedly this cache can improve loading times as data for
the webpage may already exist in the cache. That said,
there’s no point going nuts with this setting and setting
aside a large amount of space – it’s merely intended as a
temporary cache. Though this may vary depending on how
many repeat viewing webpages you visit there should no real
need to set aside more than 1 or 2 dozen MBs for this.
Personally I use just 5MB. As per the previous option
Internet Explorer also checks for newer versions of cached
data so there is no need to store too much anyway as you’ll
probably be downloading newer versions regularly.
Move Folder.
Select this button should you wish to change the location of
the temporary internet files folder.
View Files.
Selecting this button loads the temporary internet files
folder, should you wish to view what’s stored in it.
View Objects.
Selecting this button loads the downloaded program files
folder, which displays all downloaded ActiveX controls &
such, e.g. WUWebControl Class is used by Windows Update.
Right clicking on a control allow you to update it,
remove it or view its properties.
Click Ok once finished.
Delete Cookies.
Clicking this button will delete all cookies stored in the
temporary internet files folder. Cookies are useful files
created by sites and can store various information, e.g.
login information so you needed login every time you load,
say, a forum or webmail site. On the other hand they are
also used to store personal information and usage tracking
for advertisers and such. Though I’ll be covering Cookies in
more detail in later section you may again want to consider
using this feature every once in a while.
Delete Files.
Clicking this button will deleted all cached data in the
temporary internet files folder except for cookies. You
should consider doing this every once in a while to remove
unneeded cached data (From a webpage you once visited once
for example).
History.
This field sets the number of days that links for pages
viewed are stored for. This may be useful if you want to
keep track of what others using the PC are viewing or if you
want to be able to check what out a recently viewed webpage
whose URL you’ve forgotten. If this doesn’t seem like much
use then set it to 0.
Clear History.
Clicking this button deletes the history files stored on the
PC. This is presumably useful if others are using the PC and
you don’t want them to know what webpages you’ve been
visiting ;) History can be viewed in Explorer by clicking
the History button (Alternatively click View,
Explorer Bar, History).
