IE 10 has been out for a while but only on Windows 8 platform. After a long period of waiting, Microsoft finally released it to its another flagship platform, Windows 7. And that’s a very good news to Windows 7 users who use Internet Explorer on their day to day work, even a better news to IT professions as they will have more controls over to make sure users to use the browser in a more safe manner. Even though IE is not your thing, it’s still a good idea to have the latest on your Windows 7 computers, because there are many applications having IE functions built right in the software.
To those who are into the IE thing, here are a list of things about IE 10 that you definitely don’t want to miss.
First thing first, why upgrade?
Well, because
- it’s 20% faster for real world websites
- it’s 60% increase in supported modern web standards
- it’s more protected to your privacy
- it has more features.
Where to download
The easiest way is to open IE Page on your Windows 7 computer that needs upgrade, download the installation file there. Or you can go to the full download page that lists all available languages in one place. Select your package and click Download button to start the download process.
Installation
It’s so simple that all you need to do is to double click the downloaded file to launch the installation, sit back, wait for a few minutes, save all your work, and reboot your computer once it’s finished. IE 10 will be ready after the reboot.
A Few things to do before using it
The new installed IE 10 keeps all settings from previous version. But it’s time to review and make some good moves to have a better start using this new shiny tool.
1. make sure IE 10 is set to install updates automatically
Go to About Internet Explorer, and make sure the Install option is checked to receive and install updates automatically, regardless of whether your Windows Update is turned on or not.
2. select the default search engine of your own choice
Bing is default search engine in all version of IE, but you can switch it to others like Google if you want to. Click the Gear icon, go to Manage Add-ons, and select Search Providers on the left. You can manage the existing search providers on the list, or click the Find more link at the bottom of the window to add more providers if the one you want to use is not on the list.
3. Set up the nicer home page and remember the last session
These are the 2 features I enjoyed the most in Chrome and hoped everyone knows that they are available on IE as well. You can do so right on the Internet Option page, under General tab.
Setting up to remember the last sessions will save all your opened tabs from a bad crash.
Here are 6 useful tips that are worth checking, and another few IE 9 tricks that also work for IE 10.
How to remove it to revert back to the old version
In case you find the new version of IE is not working for you, you can remove it which will revert back to the previous version. And you can do so from uninstall it from Uninstall an update in Programs and Features.
Some nice websites to check how cool IE 10 is
It’s worth noting that the websites listed below also work on other modern popular browsers as well, such as Firefox, or Google Chrome.
- IE Test Drive site to check out demos with examples of hardware accelerated rendering, interactivity, touch, and real world site patterns.
- Thief of Thieves
- Cut the rope on IE
- Atari Arcade with loads of classic Atari games remade using HTML5 and Touch on the web.
- Pulse to read the news on the web.
- Contre Jour, the 2011 iPad game of the year on IE, fully re-written in HTML/JavaScript and CSS3.
And enjoy.