How to Disable Internet Explorer

Thank you ! Some type of infectious thing was causing script issues and warnings constantly although I was using another browser. This seemed to be the ready remedy. Cheers to you !

Thank you for this. Explorer kept popping up with sound effects.

I also had to change my Firefox proxy settings to auto detect then everything worked fine.

This is all very, very interesting. Thanks for all input! Not sure if it will solve my problem or not, though. I have an XP computer which I do not want to have connected to the Internet, but I want it connected to my internal network for file sharing purposes with my 2 laptops. Is there any way I can disable IE and still keep the computer on the internal network?

I have a NAS drive (wireless external hard drive on the network) with files on it that I can access from any computer on the network. I want to be able to access these from the XP computer without it being connected to the Internet.

Any replies - not too techy please - I'm not total novice but don't know a lot about networks or how the Internet works!

I need to know, how to ENABLE it! I really need to know how because I'm using my netbook and it sucks, I like my Asus laptop better :) Please help me!

I did this and I still get IE pop ups (i use fire fox) even though I cannot access the internet the normal way from IE

Thank you very much for this, now all those exploiting malware can't do anything

its a shame this solution disables google chrome too :(

LOL. Yeah there's quite a bit that are "in bed" with Microsoft.

When i come across a site that requires "explorer" i just move on.
Period.
But the advice to install LINUX or get a Mac is a good one;)

"Because sooner or later you will come across a site which will not display and/or function correctly in another browser."

Ok. so here's a solution for when you get "server connection refused" while using Mozilla, and without having to "enable" explorer (as AT&T would like to have you do).

Go to TOOLS within the Mozilla browser
Then click OPTIONS
Click on the ADVANCED tab
then on the NETWORK tab
Click on SETTINGS (next to "configure how Firefox connects to Internet")
Click on either NO PROXY or configure your own manual proxy
Click OK
and then Reload your browser (there's no need to reboot)
internet should come up again.

One more thing--My sister has been using Apple for over 15 years without any problems whatsoever!
I owe her a cup of coffee on a lost bet. She bet me that eventually i would cave and admit that Apple is superior to the PC. She was right.
I have gone through so many more PCs than she has Apple in the past 15 years. I think she's only had 3 Apple computers.
And i have owned over 12 PCs.
The reason my sister switched to Apple so long ago is because she had so many problems with a PC she purchased. Her husband banned Microsoft from his house. None of their 5 children is allowed to own a PC.
They can learn all they want about Windows and the PC at school, but they are not allowed to bring one in the house.
Their oldest son is now 19 and purchased a laptop PC about 2 months ago refusing to listen to his father.
He's already having a multitude of problems with viruses, windows becoming unstable etc.
His Network Engineer friend laughed and told him he should have listened to his parents and stayed away from Windows.

I disabled explorer more than 3 months ago. Since i've been using Mozilla, I have had no crashes whatsoever or "viral" problems.
Then today without warning my proxy server was "refusing connection".
When i called ATT they instructed me to remove the 0.0.0.0. etc.
Now it works fine but explorer is once again "enabled". They are probably in bed with Microsoft.
A friend mentioned that windows somehow detects how long you've been surfing without using explorer or there's a time sequence of how long you go without explorer. When times up it disables your connection to the net regardless of browser being used.
Perhaps it's a bit of a conspiracy theory, but really you have to ask yourself how far fetched is it?
Microsoft has made is so that you can't remove explorer without destabilizing windows. In the past, they have also made it extremely easy for viruses to come through and then "sold the public" the solution. Oh yes they've offered "patches" for free here and there so as to not be so obvious.

All i know is that it's not a coincidence that there are a multitude of persons (including software and networking engineers) that are switching to Apple computers for their personal use.
I read an interesting news article recently that details how the German and French government completely removed windows from all their governmental computers after extensive investigation on how windows and explorer operates. What they found was astounding and disturbing.
The other day we were watching the news and they were talking about how Apple has now surpassed Microsoft in sales. It is now the leading company.
Bill Gates saw this coming. I speculate that this was his major reason for suddenly "retiring". Kinda humiliating when you see that your competitor has finally caught up and will be surpassing you.
Retirement to "safe face" is nothing new in the corporate world.

I am letting my son (network administrator wannabe) have my computer on the condition he completely gets rid of windows and install another operating system. If he doesn't agree, I will be taking a bat to it.
Not ladylike but who cares.

Thanks bro, i use firefox because a friend suggested it he also mentioned that IE was more open to viruses than firefox. and he was right, my IE opens up randomly with advertising pages, and i only used it once since i baught my laptop and that was to download firefox. and never again. hopefully this will stop the annoying ads.

Folks should keep in mind that IE is not the whole show when it comes to the internet surface of Windows. What most people perceive as IE is just the user interface that we call a web browser. There is much more under the hood. Internet Explorer itself is just the tip of the internet iceberg, so to speak. There is much more to it than the little box through which we view the world, so disabling IE will naturally have implications that go well beyond that little box.

The fact that "Internet Explorer has been a prime target of attack" says nothing whatsoever about its security in an absolute sense or even relative to competing products. It is the prime target because it is the most widely used product. If Firefox was the most widely used product, which if may someday be, then it would become the prime target. Whether a product is a prime target means very little except that hysteria over this meaningless issue can cause users to blindly switch to another product or platform that might just be less secure.

Ultimately, software exists to provide tools to help us improve our quality of life. I like or dislike a company's products not because I think the company itself to be angelic or sinister but according to how well their software lets me do the things that I need to do. The product itself is not my focus but rather the things that it lets me do.

Kind regards,
Opus

awesome thx!!

Thanks dude !!!!

Thanks I tried everything to get rid of pop up repeating over each other linked to IE Your Idea Rocks !!! Firefox is working fine after doing this and no more repeating pop ups.

thanks man

I have found that using Firefox and Procon Latte I can easily make a white list to stop my autistic son from finding web sites that make him angry.

Yet he keeps finding a way back onto IE and back onto bowling sites (don't ask)

Is there a simply way to disable IE without upsetting Firefox?

Thank you so much!

This is not sensible advice for the average user. It does not fit in with the many other excellent articles at this site.

Why keep Internet Explorer when you use another browser?

1. Because sooner or later you will come across a site which will not display and/or function correctly in another browser.

2. It can cause problems with windows apps and/or other apps which use IE to access the internet.

3. It is total overkill. If you hate MS that much then buy a Mac, or install Linux.

You would be much better taking a bit of time to secure and customize IE, so that you have a reasonably decent 2nd (or 3rd or 4th..) browser if and when you need to use it.

See http://www.cert.org/tech_tips/securing_browser/ and http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-add-ins-for-internet-explorer.htm - I recommend IE7Pro.

thank you for your valuable suggestions

Just remember you all had to use IE to get the brouser you are using now. So don't bash it, if you didn't have it you wouldn't have what you are using. just a thought

This tip doesn't just disable Internet Explorer, it disables any software component which uses Windows Networking.

You aren't changing "Internet Explorer" you are changing the system-wide "Internet Options." That why a lot of other things are failing, like Opera and Windows Update.

I would not recommend doing this.

THAT IS TOO GOOD....

simply go into the Control Panels - Default Programs and select another installed browser

you may also want to change the file type assocations for html, htm, xml, etc which may be using IE

Thank you. My administrator is exceptionally lazy, and I can't get her to block internet usage at the desk. I don't think my staff will figure this one out for a while.

I've used this trick for a while and it will prevent IE from doing anything. It will also create some issues with other programs as mentioned earlier that look for IE instead of "default" browser. Most notably is Quicken! I have to swap the settings in order to do any sort of banking/credit card updates. I recently discovered that my music monkey program can't get podcasts unless IE is enabled. My solution? I put a shortcut to internet properties on my desktop and in three quick clicks I can switch my status easily. However the downside is that I often don't remember to turn it back on. If I were clever I would be able to 'write' something to make that happen more easily - however I'm not a code person.
Suze

very good

thank you

Great article. Helped me a lot. I did some more research and I also found this site. It's a really good supplement to this one.
life123.com/technology/internet/internet-explorer/how-do-i-disable-internet-explorer-on-a-pc.shtml

Disabling IE will make your Windows auto-updates and Windows Defender fail in getting updates.

great solution thanks i try first blocking and raising the security and privacy but it just didn;t work at all downloads and webs were coming every minute i hated that but thanks to ya i got this fixed does firefox also has this ploblem later?

Just removing shortcuts won't completely solve the problem as IE can still be triggered from links and other applications.

Setting Default Programs to "non-Microsoft" or "Custom" (and removing access to IE) isn't fully effective either as, for example, Windows Update will open IE when you click on "get updates for other programs", regardless of setting another browser as your default.

However Comodo Firewall, for example, uses IE connection settings and won't update with a dummy proxy, so that's not an effective fix either.

Which just leaves removing IE itself, which as Gizmo writes is likely to destabilize your OS if done post-installation.

Unless someone knows better, it seems that using something like nLite to tweak your OS prior to installation is the only effective fix, and that is neither straightforward (for the average user) nor guaranteed free of side effects.

MS have us over a barrel...

Just change all your defaults to whatever you want. Disable what you don't want. How hard is that. It won't even be in your Internet Options.

PastorSteve

I tried this yesterday and IE stopped loading just as in the artice... Sadly so did my Opera. To get Opera back I had to enable IE again............ Ah well....

Frankly, i wouldn't use any of the retarded programs you are all complaining don't work anyways.

This tip disables the crap you all shouldn't be using anyways.

you're a star!

Thanks a lot - how easy! I could have thought about the same :)

I am using Vista Home Premium and FF ver 3.0, I have disabled IE and have not had a problem with any updates, as well, I use Avast and other anti-spyware programs, I love that IE does not come up for any links. However, if you want to view videos from like ABCnews.com, you will have to use IE, but who cares?

Be warned !!!! if you disable IE a lot of software will not update.. I tried this and and found that my spyware, anti-virus and firewall all freaked out.. the irony is that a lot of the security software recommended by this site will report errors during updates if you disable IE.. in the interests of peoples sanity i would recommend removing this tip...

I need to download Adobe Photoshop, and to complete this install I had to disable IE. After I disabled the IE, still Adobe Photoshop is not installing properly. This is what's written when the Setup stops:

Installation cannot continue until the following applications are closed:
-Internet Explorer

Please close the application(s) listed above and click "Try Again" to continue the installation. Click Cancel to exit Setup.

Please help!

Do people actually need to disable IE8? Unlike IE7, it is as secure (if not more so) than most 3rd party browsers (for now at least).

I need to download Adobe Photoshop, and to complete this install I had to disable IE.After I disabled the IE, sitll Adobe Photoshop is not installing properly. This is what's written when the Setup stops:

Installation cannot continue until the following applications are closed:
-Internet Explorer

Please close the application(s) listed above and click "Try Again" to continue the installation. Click Cancel to exit Setup.

Please help!

If you do this any program that you have on your computer (such as MSN/Windows Live Messenger) that relies on Internet Explorer for interenect access will no longer work. Basically these programs share the same settings, by entering 0.0.0.0 as a proxy, none of these programs can now connect (this is simply because IE is installed by default and it's the simplist way for other programs to connect to the internet).

Your best option would probablly to be just setting Firefox/Opera/Safari etc to your default browser and then remove the IE shortcut from the start menu to stop people from using it.

HAVE KIDS... HAVE AOL Guardian. I need to disable IE so they can't 'go around" the AOL guardian access. Will the above work? Any other options? AOL is a pain in many ways, but has a GREAT guardian program to keep my kiddos safe.