Internet Explorer is crashing

It is very common to see home users who are experiencing issues with their Internet browsers.  Oftentimes, this is due to running out of date or unpatched browsers that may be infected with Malware.  Malware is getting more and more savvy at finding the holes in a system and exploiting or social engineering users to click or run installs which infects a user’s computer with various spyware.  The result may be browser sessions that crash unexpectedly or pop up unwanted windows or even redirect URLs that are input in the address bar to other websites which also may be infected with malware or attempting to steal your identity.

With Internet Explorer, there is a quick trick that oftentimes resolves issues related to the browser crashing or being configured incorrectly due to malware.  Starting with IE7, Microsoft built in a “reset” functionality which allows you to reset your browser settings back to the “factory defaults.”  This helps to zero out any erroneous settings or other configurations which might be preventing an Internet connection or causing various crashes.

Navigate to Control Panel > Internet Options > Click the last tab “Advanced” > look at the bottom of the box and click “Reset”

Next you will see the “Reset Internet Explorer Settings” box.  Here there are a couple of options you can choose from.  Just clicking “Reset” will do the following:

• Disable toolbars and add-ons
• Default web browser settings
• Privacy settings
• Security settings
• Advanced options
• Tabbed browsing settings
• Pop-up settings

 

You can check the box also to “Delete Personal Settings” which may be necessary with some Malware infections.

• Resets home pages, search providers and Accelerators to default settings.  Detletes temporary Internet files, history, cookies, web form information, passwords and InPrivate Filtering data.

Once you reset your Internet Explorer settings, you will be asked to restart IE to complete the reset.  You will notice that you will be one again prompted to customize your browser session and so on.  This may be an inconvenience to lose some of your settings, however, with certain malware infections or other incompatible browser addons, resetting your Internet Explorer settings will save the day.

Try this nifty trick before you take your computer to your local repair shop due to browser problems as a lot of times it will resolve the issues.