Internet Explorer is extraordinarily customizable. Developers and their add-ons can extend its capabilities in highly visible ways, by adding new toolbars, Explorer bars, menus, and buttons. A programmer can also hook into the browser’s core features to extend its search capabilities, manage the process of filling in forms, and save bookmarks— these are just a few of the tricks that popular add-ons can perform. These add-ons most commonly take the form of browser extensions, browser helper objects (BHOs), toolbars, Java applets, and ActiveX controls.
Unfortunately, add-ons have a dark side as well. A poorly written add-on can interfere with the smooth operation of Internet Explorer, resulting in mysterious crashes and other glitches; a malicious add-on can cause unnecessary pop-up windows, slow system performance, and reveal details about you and your browsing habits to an untrusted third party. Windows Vista offers a Manage Add-Ons dialog box that shows you all currently installed add-ons and allows you to disable those that are suspicious or that you have determined are the cause of problems.
To open this dialog box, choose Manage Add-Ons from the Tools menu and select Enable or Disable Add-ons.
The Manage Add-ons dialog box displays a fair amount of detail about each add-on, including its publisher (if known), type, and the specific file with which it is associated. Use this list to enable or disable add-ons—click an entry in the list and choose Enable or Disable under Settings below. The drop-down Show list at the top of the dialog box allows you to toggle between a full list of all available add-ons and a shorter list of only those that are currently in use. In the case of ActiveX controls installed from websites (choose Downloaded ActiveX Controls from the Show menu to see this list), you can click the Delete button under the Delete ActiveX heading to completely remove the installed code. Note that the Delete option is not available for ActiveX controls that are installed along with Windows or a Windows program such as Microsoft Office or the Windows Live Toolbar; to remove those controls, use the Uninstall Or Change A Program option in Control Panel.
Unfortunately, the Manage Add-ons dialog box does not include a mechanism for removing add-ons. If you want to permanently remove one of the items on this list, you need to find the program that originally installed it and then remove that program. (Windows Defender may also be able to assist in removing known pests.) If you can’t identify which program is responsible for a specific add-on, use your favorite search engine to look for clues, using the name of the add-on and the file with which it’s associated as search terms. Be aware also that the Manage Add-ons dialog box may not detect all add-ons, especially hostile programs that were deliberately designed to thwart easy removal.
