• Encoding: While you won’t need to muck around with this option very much, you should head here if you visit websites where the text isn’t displaying correctly (usually those in other languages).
Using the Desktop Version of Internet Explorer 10
The Metro-style version of Internet Explorer 10 is obviously big news because it’s a key component of converting users over to the new Metro environment and its touch-first apps. For the majority of Windows users, however, or those with traditional desktop PCs and laptops, Internet Explorer 10 Metro is decidedly less well-optimized for the input devices they’re using and are comfortable with.
More to the point, it’s also lacking some key functionality, such as the ability to run in a floating window alongside other applications on the desktop. It can’t run add-ons or browser extensions, including ActiveX controls. And while it supports pinning favorite sites to the Start screen, those pinned sites don’t take on their own app-like identity, as do sites you pin (to the taskbar) with the desktop version of Internet Explorer.
So it’s no surprise that IE Metro’s less adventurous cousin is going to get the nod from a very large number of Windows 8 users. But that said, there’s just aren’t many new features in this version of IE. If you’re used to Internet Explorer 9 already, IE 10 will be very familiar.
Under the hood, Microsoft has been thoroughly overhauling the engines that drive the browser’s HTML, CSS (cascading style sheet), and JavaScript rendering: the three core technologies that enable today’s more standards-compliant web. Where IE was once the laughing stock of the web standards world, IE 9, and now to an even greater degree, IE 10, is not only performing well, but it’s leading the way.
Without getting too deep into the technical miasma that are web standards, this leadership takes two forms. The first is an ability to accurately render the various features that web standards bodies recognize as being key parts of the most relevant building blocks of modern web standards—those HTML, CSS, and JavaScript bits. A web developer should be able to target these standards—and not be forced to write to individual browsers and browser versions—and know that what they create will simply work.
The second form of Internet Explorer leadership over competing browsers is performance. One of the most amazing transitions we’ve witnessed in recent years is the methodical remaking of Internet Explorer’s rendering capabilities from being software driven to being pervasively hardware accelerated. This means that any modern PC can offload the rendering of virtually any o-screen element in the browser from the PC’s microprocessor to its graphics processing unit, or GPU. The result is better performance, better battery life, and less general overhead for the system. It’s not just a win-win. It’s a win-win-win.
What’s a “modern” PC? Basically, any PC that was manufactured to run Windows Vista or newer. So any PC that was made since 2006 qualifies for purposes of this discussion.
As far as you and other Windows 8 users are concerned, what really matters is that the browser starts up quickly, runs reliably and with good performance, and renders the sites you visit accurately.
Configuring IE 10 Desktop
The configuration of the desktop version of Internet Explorer hasn’t changed much over the years because it mostly still occurs through Internet Options, which is still accessible via Control Panel (try Start Screen Search) or from within IE itself via Tools, Internet Options. Either way, you’ll see a window like the one in Figure 7-29.
Figure 7-29: Internet Options
For some reason, this window is titled Internet Properties when you launch it from Control Panel and Internet Options when you do so from IE. Ah, Microsoft, thy name is consistency.
Since we’re all adults here, we won’t step through every single option in this complex and multi-tabbed window. But there are some new and/or important options that every IE user should at least be made aware of:
• Better browsing history deletion: While the Metro version of Internet Explorer 10 lets you delete temporary files, history, cookies, and saved passwords in one fell swoop only, the desktop version features a far more granular control in which you can choose which of the following to delete: temporary files, cookies, history, download history, form data, passwords, and more. It’s far more powerful and useful. (Where: General tab, Browsing history, Delete.)
• Tab options: The desktop IE version offers a bewildering array of options related to tabs. (Where: General tab, Tabs, Tabs.)
If you deselect the Open Internet Explorer tiles on the desktop option, the IE tile on the Start screen will utilize the IE Metro icon but, when clicked, will open IE desktop.
• Which version of IE to use: If Internet Explorer is configured as the default browser—a feature we examine in a moment—you can choose which of the two IE 10 browsers to use for opening links in other programs. This can even override the default browser behavior, so you might configure IE Metro as the default but choose to open all external links in the desktop version. (Where: Programs tab, Opening Internet Explorer.)
• Manage add-ons: Unlike IE Metro, the desktop version can be extended with an amazing array of add-ons. You manage them through the logically named Manage Add-ons interface. (Where: Programs tab, Manage add-ons, Manage add-ons.)
You can also launch Manage Add-ons from the Tools menu in IE.
Where IE Metro and Desktop Meet… and Don’t
As we discussed previously in this chapter, it’s very easy to launch the desktop version of Internet Explorer from the Metro version: Just tap the Page tools button in the navigation bar, and then View on the desktop to load the currently displayed web page in the desktop version of the browser. You may want to do this when you run into a web page that won’t work in IE Metro, perhaps because it expects an add-on of some kind.
In such cases, you’ll see some content that isn’t displaying correctly, along with a message like that shown in Figure 7-30 indicating that the site would load properly only if you downloaded the appropriate add-on. This happens most frequently with Adobe Flash (though many such sites do work in IE Metro) and (irony alert) Microsoft Silverlight based sites.
Don’t be fooled by this. Yes, you can follow the supplied link and, yes, you can download and then install the appropriate add-on. (This will happen in the desktop environment, which is perhaps a clue to the futility of this action.) But when you do, the add-on is only installed in the desktop version of IE. When you return to IE Metro and reload the page, you’ll get the same message about needing to download the add-on.
Figure 7-30: When good sites go bad: Browser add-ons won’t run in IE Metro.
We wish IE Metro were a bit more sophisticated about this. But you’ll quickly learn, and remember, that IE Metro can’t work with add-ons. So you’ll have to do something different, like load that page in desktop IE and see if it just works. Chances are it will.
OK, so you know how to handle the situations where you’re in IE Metro and want (or need) to load a page from desktop IE. But what about launching IE Metro from desktop IE?