What is caret browsing ie8

Select any piece of text on a Web page, and the Accelerator button, shown at right, will pop up; click that button to see the Accelerator menu.

You can also access Accelerators on the right-click contextual menu. Some Accelerators show their results in a pop-up window, as shown in the image below, while others appear in a new tab.

IE8 comes with several built-in Accelerators, but third-party developers are already starting to produce a wide range of new ones that you can install yourself. Go to Microsoft's Accelerator Gallery to see the available options. Another add-on that's new in IE8 is the Web Slice. Web Slices allow you to subscribe to a frequently updated part of a Web page, such as sports scores, headlines or current weather -- if the site's developers have designated that part of the page as a Web Slice.

Most Web sites are not Web Slice-enabled at this time. When a page you're viewing contains a Web Slice, a green icon appears on the toolbar next to the Home icon, as shown to the right. The same icon appears next to the Slice-ready content on a Web page when you mouse over it. Click the icon in either location to see a dialog box asking if you want to add the content to your Favorites bar. Adding a Web Slice places a button on your Favorites bar that opens a small drop-down box with the updated information from the original page, so you can check the weather, traffic or anything else without interfering with whatever else you're doing in your browser.

In addition to the usual cookies and Web history, IE8 saves form data and passwords, search terms in the search box, and URLs in the address bar -- all in the name of making things easier for you. But easier for you means easier for everyone else, too -- a nosy boss, a prying parent or spouse, or anyone else you might not want to see what you do on the Web.

With InPrivate Browsing, you can browse without leaving a trace. Activate it by selecting InPrivate Browsing from the Safety menu.

A new IE8 window will open with a blue InPrivate indicator to the left of the address bar. Nothing you view in that window will be accessible after you close it: no Web history, no saved cookies, no cached Internet files, no saved searches or URLs, no saved form data or passwords -- nothing. With IE8's Caret Browsing feature, you can browse pages, select text and even use Accelerators and other contextual menu functions without removing your fingers from the keyboard.

Enable Caret Browsing by pressing F7. In Caret Browsing, you use the arrow keys to navigate through the page, letter by letter right and left arrows or line by line up and down arrows.

To select text, hold down the Shift key while using the arrows. Use the arrow keys to navigate the menu and Enter to make a selection. If Accelerators aren't appearing as options in the context menu, you might have a third-party add-on installed that's interfering. The IE7Pro add-on , for instance, displays a customized context menu that doesn't include Accelerators.

Tweaking the add-on's preferences settings -- or, if all else fails, disabling it -- should do the trick. As you surf the Web, you encounter a fair amount of third-party content primarily advertising that doesn't originate from the sites you're visiting -- and often that content is served up by the same sources over and over.

As you encounter such content on site after site, a fairly thorough profile of your browsing habits, interests and even purchases can be assembled by advertisers using cookies to track your behavior. Learn More. Internet Explorer TechCenter. Sign in. United States English. Ask a question. Quick access. Search related threads.

Remove From My Forums. Answered by:. To enable caret browsing, IE8 must be opened. Pressing the "F7" key and clicking the "Page" button opens a new box. From there, clicking "Caret Browsing" enables the feature. If you want to enable caret browsing for all browsing windows and tabs, clicking "Internet Options" from the "Tools" menu brings up the browser's options.

From the Advanced tab, selecting "Enable Caret Browsing for new windows and tabs" under Accessibility enables the feature for all browsing windows and tabs. After enabling caret browsing, holding the Shift key and pressing the the arrow keys allows you to select text. How much text you can select in one moment depends on the arrow key you press. Pressing the Home button moves you to the beginning of a document, while pressing the END button brings you to the end of a document.

There are several keyboard shortcuts, so to maximize caret browsing, familiarize yourself with these IE8 shortcuts.