Users who want a little bit of comfort can install one of the available browser extensions instead to submit sites and files directly from an Internet browser to Virus Total. We already reviewed the Virus Total Firefox and Virus Total Chrome extensions previously. This time, we take a look at the Internet Explorer version of Virus Total.

The Internet Explorer version of Virus Total is limited in comparison to the Chrome or Firefox version. Unlike those versions that integrate not only into the browser’s right-click context menu but also into the file download dialog, the Internet Explorer version only integrates into the context menu.

When you install the Internet Explorer add-on, you will notice afterwards that a Send URL to VirusTotal entry has been added to the context menu of Internet Explorer. This option is only displayed on right-clicks on links, and not if the user right-clicks on other page elements. This basically means that you cannot really check the site you are on currently, unless it links to itself somewhere on the page.

Another issue that users may come across is that the context menu entry will always submit the url to the Virus Total url analyzer, even if a file is the link target. It is possible to switch to the antivirus report in that report, but it takes another click to load it.

The add-on definitely has its flaws, from the context menu limitations to the fact that it is always the page that gets scanned even if the link is pointing directly to a file. The Explorer add-on is however still handy and faster than having to submit file links or urls directly on the Virus Total website.

Virus Total Explorer is compatible with all recent versions of Microsoft’s Internet browser. downloads are provided at the Virus Total website. There is unfortunately no option to directly link to the page where the download is offered. Open the Browser Addons page and switch to Internet Explorer in the menu below to find information and downloads. (via)

Third party tools come to the rescue. One of the most popular spell checkers for Internet Explorer is SpeckIE. The add-on is compatible with all recent versions of the web browser including Internet Explorer 9.

Like other Internet Explorer add-ons it comes as a standalone executable. Just download the program and follow the setup to add the add-on to Internet Explorer.

You are asked to confirm that you want to add SpeckIE to Internet Explorer on first run after installation of the spell checker. Make sure you accept the inclusion. I had to close Internet Explorer afterwards and start the browser anew to get the spell checker to working.

The spell checker works after that on its own with no option to configure it further. You can access SpeckIE’s options via the Tools menu of Internet Explorer or by entering about:Speckie in the Internet Explorer address bar after installation and activation.

Here it is possible to include or exclude installed dictionaries and user dictionaries, turn off the spell checking for single line edit fields and to limit the number of spelling suggestions per dictionary. It is furthermore possible to change the tag style and color of spelling mistakes. The default is a red dotted wave line that’s displayed whenever words cannot be properly identified by the dictionary. This can be because you have misspelled the word or because it is not in the add-on’s dictionary.

SpeckIE comes as a 32-bit and 64-bit edition for 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Microsoft Internet Explorer. It ships with an English dictionary file by default. Other dictionaries are available on the developer website. These additional dictionaries can be installed with a double-click after downloading them.

I suggest you download the spell checker from a software portal like Softpedia, as you need to register an account at the developer website before you can download it from there.

Diff-IE is a prototype add-on developed by Microsoft Research that adds capabilities to compare the current website with a previously visited version in Internet Explorer.

The Internet Explorer add-on comes as a standalone installer which will install the add-on into the web browser. The Diff-IE add-on itself is compatible with all 32-bit versions of Internet Explorer 7 to the latest beta of Internet Explorer 9. It will however run fine on both 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system.

IE users should take a look at the add-on’s settings first to configure it properly. It does work right away after enabling the add-on but there are some settings in the options that may need to be altered. Among them an option to ignore sites which is by default set to all https and about urls. It would have probably been better if Microsoft would have added an option to disable the add-on on all pages with a whitelist attached to use it on selected ones. Diff-IE as of now will track changes on every visited webpage that is not in the ignored sites list.

Other settings include the highlight color and change threshold above which differences are not shown, if page contents should be cached and a listing of currently cached webpages.

The add-on itself displays a toolbar in the browser that offers quick access to core features.

Here it is possible to add a site to the ignored site listing, compare the current page to a cached page snapshot, show or hide the differences or display a side-by-side comparison. This feature is however only available if the cache page contents as an image setting is enabled in the options.

IE-Diff is a handy tool for Internet Explorer, especially for users who like to track changes made to a website over time. It would probably be better if the devs would change the blacklist approach to whitelisting, as I’m not sure how the add-on handles lots of site visits per day. It is mainly a performance and storage concern.

Google Analytics is implemented with JavaScript on the webmaster’s site so that it can track the traffic. The traffic tracking service has come under criticism lately in some countries as it theoretically gives Google additional information about millions of web users.

Advanced users who want to opt out of Google Analytics were able to do so by installing an ad blocking or script blocking script in their web browser.

NoScript for Firefox is for instance such an add-on that can block the Google Analytics script.

Google has now created a Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on that can also be used to block the script so that the traffic is not tracked by it.

The browser add-on is available for Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 and IE8, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox 3.5 and higher.

To provide website visitors with more choice about how their data is collected by Google Analytics, we have developed the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on. The add-on communicates with the Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js) to indicate that information about the website visit should not be sent to Google Analytics.

The add-on basically sends the opt-out notification to the Google Analytics script so that the information are not recorded. That is not as effective as blocking the script completely on the other hand.

NoScript for instance has the additional benefit that the script will not be loaded and executed at all which reduces the page loading time of websites that use Google Analytics.

Users who want to install the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on can download it from the official Google Tools page-

WOT, which stands for Web Of Trust, is an add-on for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer that increases the Internet security of the web browser. The main purpose of the add-on is to scan and rank all links in popular search engines and other websites to give the user an indication of the dangers of each listed website.

Each link on supported websites will be ranked with a single colored icon which can be expanded into a detailed view when hovering with the mouse over it. Websites are ranked from very poor to excellent in the four categories trustworthiness, vendor reliability, privacy and child safety.

The Internet Explorer add-on will display a popup if the user clicks on a link with a poor rating which works as a second warning. It is then up to the user to ignore the warning and visit the website, skip the website or check some user reviews on the Web of Trust website first.

Web of Trust should not obviously be the only means of Internet Security but it can be helpful especially for inexperienced users who might get into troubles when visiting unsafe websites. The Internet Explorer add-on is actually not exclusive to Internet Explorer as a version for Firefox is also available for download.

Safe Web Browsing: WOT and How to Use It

Many users are familiar with WOT (Web of Trust) featured for Firefox and Internet Explorer and it certainly has been mentioned in posts. To take full advantage of WOT; you need to know how to use it. This may seem simple to the advanced user, but it is unfamiliar territory to the user who is new to browsing safety. Some anti-malware suites take care of safe web browsing and many do not. If you want to be certain that a website is “safe”, WOT is a great way to do this. “Safe means that the site is clear of malware, spyware, adware, etc. It is hard to tell just by looking if a site is unsafe or safe. This will give you the ability to discern and make appropriate choices accordingly.

WOT in its completely functional format is available for Firefox and Internet Explorer. Safari and Opera versions are available yet they are admittedly incomplete at this time. It may be added to Google Chrome as well. For this demonstration, the focus is on Internet Explorer.
Start by downloading the WOT add-on for Internet Explorer.

You will then be requested to register to activate all features. This is where you will have to agree to the Terms of Service and License Agreement once again. This may seem odd, but it is the way Licensing Agreements go. Depending on your system and any programs running at the time, this could take a few minutes to complete. After you register, you may see that it is taking a long time to confirm. If this is the case, restart the browser and you will see that WOT has been installed on Internet Explorer. IE9 is used in this example.

You will see this circular icon in the upper right corner of the IE browser. This is WOT. When you go to a website, click on this to see the ratings. For example, here the user navigated to desktopnexus.com. This is a free site for desktop backgrounds. The ratings indicated that it is safe.

This confirms general user reports that this site is reliable and safe: free of malware and thus trustworthy. Now we can take a look at another random site and see its ratings. Please note that this is purely demonstrative and not intended to incriminate any site or confirm that it is a dangerous site. This is merely to show the functions of WOT in Internet Explorer.

The author will go as far as to state that this is a free music download site that is at the top of Google’s search. Immediately, this warning came up. Upon further examination with certain anti-malware software, several threats were identified. You can click the View rating details and comments button to see the ratings:

When you see this, navigate away from the site and find a more trusted site. WOT works without instigation. Generally, if you do not see a “WARNING” pop up, the site is safe. Click the circular WOT icon shown earlier to see the ratings of any given site to be sure. Enjoy safe browsing and avoid problems that could compromise the safety of your computer.

The lack of plugins can be problematic if you have to use Internet Explorer due to work policies. The Copy Selected Links plugin for Internet Explorer makes it a little bit easier to copy multiple links (via Shellcity) of a page.

The plugin installs itself automatically to the right-click context menu of Internet Explorer and becomes automatically active whenever at least one link is selected. Links can be selected with the left mouse button easily. Every link that has been selected will be copied to the Windows Clipboard when the option is selected from the right-click menu.

All links are copied with a carriage return meaning that pasting them into another document will return one link per line.

Not included are the browsing history or session cookies which is a bit unfortunate as it could mean to log into several of the websites again if they require that. The extension becomes available in the Tools menu of Internet Explorer after installation where the sessions can be stored or loaded.

The Internet Explorer sessions are stored in the program directory by default. The extension provides the option to store them at the Amazon S3 Service instead which costs $0.150 per GB but has the advantage that the sessions are available online and can therefor be loaded from any computer with Internet connection.

Another option would be to send the session per email or upload it manually to the Internet to access it from a second computer.

One interesting aspect of the session manager for Internet Explorer is the ability to manage the stored urls of each session. Single urls can be loaded in the browser. It is also possible to delete urls from the session.

IE Sessions supports Internet Explorer 6 or on Windows XP or Windows 2000. Windows Vista users should read the information posted on the website about Vista compatibility first before they install the extension.

Qpedia is an add-on for Internet Explorer 6 and 7 that adds Wikipedia Search to the browser. The function becomes available after selecting and right-clicking text in Internet Explorer. The new entry Wikipedia is added to that menu and a click on that entry opens a new Internet Explorer window that opens the Wikipedia page that corresponds to the selected text.

There are not any options to configure the add-on properly. There is no way to make the links open in a new tab. The search also uses the English Wikipedia website to search for the phrases. This add-on could be useful to some users who search Wikipedia regularly and use Internet Explorer.