internet explorer: autorefresh?

Is there a tweak or something that will keep IE trying to connect to an address until it gets there? I'm sick to death of having to hit 'refresh' or 'Go' until it finally gets thru. Surely somebody has a way around this?

I recently upgraded from a prehistoric Acer 97 with Windows 98 and NetZero to an HP Media XP with an EarthLink connection. Not exactly rocket science, but still more than I've had by a long shot. Definitely not a qualifed Geek, but I'm a long time user of the site. If it wasn't for this place and FreewareArena I'd have never been able to keep my old clunker going in the face of change while I was homebound for two years. Thanks for everything.

 

Don't think that's possible with IE.

But browsers like MyIE2, Avant, or Opera use a tabbed interface where you can set auto-refresh intervals for each tab/page you have open. Try one for awhile and you'll think IE is lame.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads5.html

 

Thanks for the info. I downloaded MyIE2.

I never looked seriously at alternative browsers cuz the old machine could barely run IE. MyIE2 seems to be seriously powerful, and somewhat overwhelming. I'm sure time and familiarity will help me to customize it. I just don't need most of the stuff in the toolbars and hate all the wasted screen space.
On the whole, looks mighty useful.

 

I use MyIE2 myself. All the features can seem overwhelming at first but you don't have to master it all at once. There's good info on their website:
http://www.myie2.com/html_en/home.htm

 

As a note, be aware that most of those aren't new browser at all, just new overlays -- new interfaces to the same browsing engine.

MyIE2, Avant, and Slim Browser all use MSIE. So does WinAMP's internal browser, AFAIK.

Opera is an entirely different browsing engine. So is Mozilla (which shares an engine with Mozilla Firefox).

What's the difference? Well, IE makes up about 90% of the browsers in use on the Internet. And since it's a MS product, there are a lot of standards that are proprietary MS standards you'll only find in IE -- another way to put it is that MS breaks with existing standards to make it more difficult for other browsers to display pages "correctly". Because of the popularity of MSIE, most pages are designed to work with that browser -- broken standards and all -- so the other browsers don't work on every page.

So why use Mozilla or Opera? Well, MSIE has a number of serious security flaws with it (look at all the patches and security bulletins on it). Additionally, MSIE is not available on *nix, and development of the Mac version is incomplete (MS just restarted development of Windows MSIE 7 for Longhorn). Additionally, browsers like Mozilla are dedicated to accepted Internet standards set by W3C. Also, other browsing engines can render pages faster than MSIE can, although that's less of an issue with the speed of modern computers.

 

I use Opera and love it. Had major trouble with IE crashing and that just doesn't happen with Opera. I need to use IE for the gmail account but I open it, check that and close it again. I hope that soon gmail will support Opera. As for not having pages open that has never been a problem except I just found out that I don't have the Java version installed. Downloaded it yesterday but am reluctant to install it. What if it acts differently. Would I have to uninstall the non-Java version first do you think or will it just add what it needs?

 

Cool. Thanks Halo, checking that out right now

 

The only difference between the Java and non-Java versions of Opera is that the Java version will install the latest of Sun's Java Runtime Environment. If you already have that installed, then there's no reason to get the Java version. The non-Java version will save you from downloading it all over again.

 

If it really bothers you. As long as you keep things up-to-date it really isn't that much of an issue. You won't be able to rid yourself of IE completely anyhow.

 

Personally I use Mozilla firebird because it renders pages quicker, its very configurable (you can change the code!!), has an excelent popup blocker and a search bar component, so i can do a google search without having google toolbar.

Plus its more secure than IE anyhow...

da chicken is right... even if you use another browser if you are on a MS operating system you must update IE anyway.

 

Pop goes the Gmail requires the .NET framework

 

Thanks Halo
alanc has said it requires the .NET framework. What is that?

@da chicken: How do I find out if I already have Java installed. When I do preferences in Opera it says I don't have it, but I'm pretty sure I do in IE6.

Thanks for your help guys

 

How to get the .NET Framework

Anyone can download and install it. But it's against my principles to install a 25MB OS add-on just so I can run a 500kb program.

 

You probably do have it, but it's just not set up to plug-in to Opera yet. There is a Microsoft Java VM that used to install with Windows, but the DOJ had them remove it because it broke Sun's Java client (well, it used altered Java code that would only work with their JVM) -- antitrust issues.

Anyhow, go Start --> Settings --> Control Panel. One of the options should be Java Plug-In. If it isn't there, you can just go to http://www.java.com/ and download the latest one.

 

Well, the .NET framework is exactly the same as the Java VM. Except it isn't cross-platform, so I'm not exactly sure what the benefit of .NET is supposed to be.

"Look, now I can use my Windows-only apps and have them run as slow as cross-platform Java apps! Whee!"

 

Thank you. I don't see it in the main window of control panel and now I have a new issue, when I click Add/remove programs, the window opens and then freezes. Maybe I should try a repair with the discs? I have win2000 pro, pent III, and I'm cleaning my desk and I'm not sure what other specs I usually post. Sorry.