Internet Explorer 8 SmartScreen Filter

Internet Explorer 8 in particular has some new security 

functions integrated into its service, trying to make up for the 

lack of security in its previous versions. Granted, it is not a 

perfect system as I will explain in more detail later, but at 

least they are making an effort. Right? Right.

SmartScreen Filter

           SmartScreen Filter is one of the new safety features 

found in the 8th iteration of this popular browser. It isn’t 

complicated to use, in fact, it requires zero effort on your 

part. 

Smart Screen checks the websites that you visit against a 

constantly updated list of known phishing and malware sites 

reported by other users. Software that you download is also 

checked against a similar list of malicious software sites.

For instance, if you find an unsavory site in your inter-web 

travels, the following warning message will greet you. It will 

then be advised that you should travel to another, safer site.

This is the first problem I had with the system, maybe it was 

just me, but I had to borrow the above image from 

Microsoft’s Official site because no matter how hard I tried to 

 find an especially dangerous site, Internet Explorer never 

stopped me.

I suspect that this is because they rely on users to report 

unsafe data, rather than trolling the web on their own. Either 

way, it was not very reassuring. But some protection is better 

than none I suppose.

The other aspect of SmartScreen is more subtle, simply  

highlighting the domain name of the website in order to 

better spot misleading addresses meant to trick you into 

entering personal data on copycat websites, also known as 

phishing (ie: banking, email, etc).

Like here, www.microsoft.com is darker than the rest of 

the address to bring attention to it.

Furthermore, if you need to toggle SmartScreen Filter off or 

 on, it can be accessed from the Settings menu in Internet 

Explorer 8. Observe.

 

InPrivate Browsing and Filtering

      I love features like this one. InPrivate Browsing allows 

you to protect your private information while browsing on 

public computers. Information such as your browsing history, 

 form data, cookies, temporary Internet files, as well as 

usernames and passwords will not be saved in any capacity 

during your time on the web. As someone that uses public 

computers at my University, I find this feature quite valuable.

You can either select InPrivate Browsing at the default New 

Tab window or by selecting it in the settings menu as shown 

below.

Websites sometimes provide ads, content, images, and 

analytics from third-parties that they are unaffiliated with. In 

these cases, InPrivate Filtering steps in to protect you 

from those that would wish to do you harm by stalking your 

 internet activities and stealing your information.

 A word to the wise: InPrivate Filtering is not on by default, 

 and like InPrivate Browsing, it must be activated on a per 

session basis. This can again be done by accessing the Safety 

menu within the Settings dropdown.

And that is that. Now you know how Internet Explorer 8 
protects you from all the baddies