New Features of Internet Explorer 6

New Features of Internet Explorer 6

Document number: 19044

For the most part you will notice few changes between Internet Explorer 5.5 and Internet Explorer 6.

Image Toolbar
Automatic Image Resizing
Change to Toolbar
Media Bar
Locked Toolbar
Privacy settings and cookies
A Delete Cookies button has been added to the General tab of Internet Options.
Enable Third-Party Browser Extensions (Requires Restart)
Components Not Included
Download - Save dialog box has changed
Icon for Internet Options has changed
Slight change to Internet Explorer Icon
Delay in getting webpage

Image Toolbar

Hover your mouse over a big enough an image on a web page, and a small floating toolbar automatically pops up. This allows you to perform a number of operations with one mouse-click: save, print or email the image. Click an icon on the toolbar, and you can easily e-mail the image to a friend or save the picture to your hard drive, however Microsoft is also taking steps to make sure that site authors can protect copyrighted images. IE 6 recognizes a few new HTML tags that give Web authors additional control over whether the Image Toolbar pops up. Thus, Web site builders may choose to disable the Image Toolbar, either on individual images or for all images on a page. The image must be at least 200 by 200 pixels and not part of an image map or a background image.

Change whether Image Toolbar appears

Open Control Panel
Double-click on Internet Options
Click the Advanced Tab
Scroll down the list to the MultiMedia heading.
Check the box that says "Enable Image Toolbar" if you want the tool bar to appear. Uncheck the box if you want the tool bar not to appear.

Automatic Image Resizing

When an image is opened directly into the browser window Automatic Image Resizing adjusts the image height and width when it is larger than the browser window. With this feature, you do not need to scroll to view large pictures. If you change the window size, Internet Explorer automatically adjusts the pictures to fit the new window size. Images that are embedded within HTML pages are not automatically resized.

Change whether images are automatically resized.

Open Control Panel
Double-click on Internet Options
Click the Advanced Tab
Scroll down the list to the MultiMedia heading.
Check the box that says "Enable Automatic Image Resizing" if you want images automatically sized to fit the browser window.. Uncheck the box if you want the images to retain original size even when too large for the browser window.

Change to Toolbar

The default icons for I.E. 5 included Search, Favorites and History. I.E. 6 retains these default icons but the "History" icon is no longer labled. In addition there is a "Media" icon which opens the Media bar in the left hand panel.

Click on the image icon to see the tabs:
Toolbar for IE5.x
Toolbar for IE6.x

You can choose which features you want on the Internet Explorer 6 toolbar. If you want to simplify the toolbar, you can remove icons, change to smaller icons, or remove the text labels displayed next to the icons. To customize the toolbar:

Right–click the Standard toolbar, and then click Customize.
In the Text options list, click No text labels to remove them.
In the Icon options list, click Small icons to change the default setting.
In the Current toolbars list, click any icon that you want to remove, and then click Remove.
To keep your changes safe, right–click the toolbar again, and make sure to select the Lock Toolbars check box

Media Bar

The Media Bar incorporates Windows Media Player into the browser. It opens in the left hand panel much the same way "Favorites" "Search" and "History" do. The first time you click on a media file link after installing Internet Explorer 6 you will get a prompt asking whether to open the file in the Media bar. Select the image icon to see a screenshot of the message. Because of the limited space in the panel the image will be smaller than if you use the external media player. If you answer "Yes" to view the file in the Media bar you should uncheck the selection for "remember my preference" so the default will remain your external media player. For more information see Eureka! document 19046 — Media Bar Settings for Internet Explorer 6.

Locked Toolbar

Internet Explorer toolbars are locked by default and cannot be moved or resized. This can help prevent your toolbar being replaced by an unauthorized program.

To unlock the toolbars so that you can move or resize them, right-click a blank area of a toolbar, and then click to clear the Lock the Toolbars check box.

Privacy settings and cookies

In I.E. 5. x you would change your cookies settings (prompt, enable, disable) by selecting the Security tab in Internet Options, then choosing the security zone - Internet, Local intranet, Trusted sites, Restricted sites. Now cookies are configured on the Privacy tab.

Click on the image icon to see the tabs:
Internet Options tabs for IE5.x
Internet Options tabs IE6.x

In I.E. 6 some cookies are disabled by default. The first time you visit a site that attempts to install that kind of cookie you will get a large privacy prompt. You can easily view privacy summaries from the Web sites, and choose how you want the sites to handle your cookies. You can also access the privacy report for any Web page from the View menu or by clicking on the Privacy icon, if present. For more information see Eureka! document 19042 — Privacy settings in Internet Explorer 6.

A Delete Cookies button has been added to the General tab of Internet Options.

Click on the image icon to see the tabs:
Temporary files buttons for IE5.x
Temporary files buttons IE6.x

Enable Third-Party Browser Extensions (Requires Restart)

NOTE: When you click this option, you must restart the computer.

Default=on

This setting allows you to disable third-party Tool Bands and Browser Helper Objects for troubleshooting purposes.

NOTE: When you click this option, you must restart the computer. For further information, see the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:
298931 How to Disable Third-Party Browser Features

Components Not Included

Internet Explorer 6 does not include Web folders, FTP folders, MSN Messenger, Microsoft VM for Java, or NetMeeting 3.x. Existing versions of these programs and features are preserved on upgrade or may be installed by your operating system. Microsoft VM for Java can be installed on demand if required to display a Web page.

Download - Save dialog box has changed

Internet Explorer 6 includes new security warnings and prompts. In IE when you click on a link for an executable file, or certain other file types you will get a prompt asking whether you want to save the file to disk or open the file from its current location. The langauge used and the appearance of that prompt differs significantly between Internet Explorer 5 and 6 but the functionality is the same.

Click on the image icon to see each dialog box:
File prompt for IE5.x
File prompt for IE6.x

Icon for Internet Options has changed

"Internet Options" in Control Panel allows you to make changes to the configuration and behavior of your I.E. browser without opening the browser. This is especially helpful when there is a problem with the browser. The appearance of the icon has changed between IE 5.x and IE 6.x .

Slight change to Internet Explorer Icon

I.E. 6 is on the left, I.E. 5 is on the right.

Delay in getting webpage

"Http://" is the part of a standard web page address identifiing a site as external to the local network. If you don't include it, the browser may add it. Before it does so, however, it will poll the local domain name server to see if the address is local. If it does not find the address on the local domain name server it will assume the http:// is required and add it. In I.E.6 this process of checking can take a bit longer than in I.E. 5. If you don't like the delay then add the http:// yourself.