Fast Internet browsing is not all about your connection speed. One of the key factors is how familiar you are with your browser and what you can do to make it even more comfortable to use. In this article I’m going to show you how to customize Internet Explorer 8.
First of all you’ll need to unlock the toolbar. Just right-click on it and uncheck Lock the Toolbar. Now you can move the Favorites Bar and the Command Bar anywhere you like and customize how much space each bar uses. You can also hide the Favorites Bar to make IE8 look like IE7, or hide the Command Bar, if you don’t need it (or both for that matter). If you like having the Menu Bar at hand, right-click on the toolbar and select Menu Bar. It will appear.
There is a thing I really like about Internet Explorer 8 – you can choose where to have the Refresh and Stop buttons – to the left of the address bar, or to the right of it.
If you have any third-party toolbars installed, sometimes you might want to close them quickly. That’s really easy with IE8, because each toolbar will have a close button 
from now on. To activate your installed toolbars right-click on the toolbar area and choose the third-party toolbar you want to appear.
And last, but not least – use Internet Explorer add-ons, such as search tools, accelerators, and web slices. They can be really handy and can make web browsing a lot more enjoyable. You can get various IE extensions here.
As a side note – if you want to have a really customizable browser, switch to Firefox.
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[...] Go to the author’s original blog: How To Customize Internet Explorer 8 « Auslogics Blog [...]
This told me how to customize the tool bars, but not how to customize the home page. In previous versions I could add or delete content and move to content between columns and up or down within the columns. Now I click on customize and nothing happens.
I have always moved my favorites bar adjacent to the command bar (same row) but IE8 does not allow that, even though your article says it can. IE8 is big disappointment in its lack of being able to customize much of anything.
I agree with Gary. They are talking like IE8 is so customizable but not really. I guess the big deal is that now you can move the stop button back to where it belongs. Fantastic. They break 10 things from IE6 to IE7 and then by IE8 the fixed one. I’m searching for solutions because I can’t put the Google toolbar next to the long address bar like I do on IE6 or in FF. In fact, they seem to have allowed only specific movements of toolbars, MUCH more limited than IE6.
Oh well, I guess they have their reasons for trying to keep us from customizeing IE8 just like they limited IE7. I’ll go back to Fire Fox then. They can keep it.
Seems MS are dead againt customisation of toolbars, it’s gone from hopeless to useless. Even sicker is the office 2007, the toolbars are just so messed up.
What’s with the MS one-size-fits-all idea, talk about going communist, aren’t computers supposed to be like our homes, we can arrange the furniture how we want it.
I use IE8 with 3 or 4 toolbars which means that it takes longer to display and annoyingly undoes any customisations I have done like moving short toolbars into a gap on another toolbar with space.
Ideally, I would like to retain all the functionality of my toolbars but put all the buttons on just one toolbar.
Hopefully, this would mean that it was easier & quicker to display yet it would retain all the functionality allowing me to uninstall the other toolbars.
I now have my old Google search bar plus the one Explorer 8 asks me which search engine I wanted. I didn’t know I would end up with 2 of the same. So how do I change or delete the Google search that came with Explorer 8?
All I want is my add to favorites tab, beside my favorites tab. All this new stuff just adds clutter and takes more screen space away from the top. After about an hour worth of removing useless crap with the update.
I simply want the the favorites & add to favorites stars on the far left of my screen beside my tabs just like before.
I add it and it appears way on the left completely seperate from the general favorites star.
Why in the world wouldn’t / couldn’t they be beside each other as before. I’ve given up looking for help and tried every tool or option available. It’s not under options, does not let you move the separator tab and move it. I don’t want a whole line just for favorites. Ridicilous!! I’m ready to roll back to old explorer or use Mozilla as I’ve seen many raving about especially since this newest wonderful Microsoft update. So much for easy of use.
Here’s one for ya. In the address bar when I drop it down I have 12 sites that I visit often. In IE7 I had many more. I would rather get rid of the history and favorites in the dropped down address bar and instead have more sites I visit often. Possible?
Looks like MS are taking a note from Apples book: You can have it any way you want as long as it’s the way we want.
Removing the ability to place toolbars and buttons where the user wants them is a backwards step.
Why cant I have my command bar buttons on the same line as the menu bar instead of having two mostly empty toolbars taking up screen space?
Why can’t I move the favorites button onto one of the other toolbars – to leave more space for tabs on the tab bar?
etc etc.
So it’s pretty, so it’s faster – but if it’s a pain to use I’m going back to firefox…
Let’s see if they get it right in ie9.
I installed IE 8, and boy am I sorry I did. I can’t stand wasting screen space needlessly, all I want is a couple buttons, the address box and the pull down menus. That stupid orange or yellow star on the far left, that whole row needs to disappear, how do I get rid of that useless thing?
Grrrrr. That stupid favorite star. One solution: while not using your toolbars, hit ALT plus ENTER and the whole shootin match disappears. Same key strokes to restore. I’m running an inspiron mini 9, so that piece of crap inch tall tool bar represents 15% of my screen. Thanks MS.
Thanks for these tips. At least now I can get rid of some of those space wasting toolbars, but I hope they’ll stay whenever I restart etc. I agree with the other comments about the unneccessary favorites bar – when the old favorites option was perfectly good. NOw I’ve got the Google Bookmarks as wellas ie favorites – too much duplications. THe other thing I rally miss it the history icon. I hata having to click on favorites first to find history.
Other than that, so far it seems to work faster than IE6.
LONG LIVE IE6 !!!
IE8 is absolutely the worst browser I have ever tried to customize. Oh well… Another fail for Microsoft…
Back to IE6 I go.
Maybe some day Microsoft will learn, that the more they try to prevent us from being able to rearrange things to suit us individually, the more we will go somewhere else to suit our needs…
Microsoft = Morons
If you run a computer support company you think you would check the validity of your sites info in particular this annoying leftist lack of freedom in the IE8 taskbar.
Where is the HOME button? Why can’t I have it????????????
ie 7 stinks
ie 8 stinks
now i get free windows 8
what the heck is that doing to do?
i too want ie6 back and may go back
i hate the star and wasted space.
take up all my windows room
i do apprciente the alt/enter soluition to hide the entire thing. i think i can live with that.
i hated bing and took forever to get rid of it.
and now since adding ie8 i had to copy and paste url
BECAUSE :::::::::::::::::::
GOOGLE SAID IT WAS NOT A SAFE SITE… WHAT THE HECK??? I HAVE NORTON TO TELL ME WHAT IS SAFE DONT NEED FREAKING GOOGLE TELLING WHERE I CAN AND CAN NOT GO. IF I WANT TO LOOK AT PORN THAT IS MY DECISION. IF I WANT TO LOOK AT THE BIBLE THAT IS MY DECISION. IF I WANT TO LOOK AT BOOT LEGGED MOVIES THAT IS MY DECISION
I AM BEGINGIN TO RE-THINK THIS WHOLE THING AND TRY MONZILLA FIREFOX OR SAFARI… I HATE HOTMAIL MSN, WINDOWS LIVE, AND ANY ADD ON THAT POPS UP ON MY COMPUTER WITH OUT MY KNOWLEDGE
SHARON
It is apparently impossible to move the command toolbar to the left of the favorites toolbar. You can move the command bar above the favorites or below it, or even to the right. But no way can you get the command bar to the left of favorites. That makes no sense to me at all. Such limited ability to arrange the toolbars is worse than no ability to do so.
Thanks to my work admin, I am stuck with IE8. I swear IE has been going downhill since 4.5…
Toolbars seem to be less customisable than before: the address bar is at the top of the screen and you can’t move it. The search bar, which I never use, can’t be removed. The favourites button can’t be removed. I can’t move/remove any toolbar icons (unlike in Word, for instance).
The address bar will only drop down if autocomplete is enabled. I hate autocomplete. Drop down addresses are displayed in large retard font, and there is an INVISIBLE delete button beside each address (to the right). The Compatability Mode icon keeps flashing up messages I don’t need to see.
OTOH, we get “searchability”, which seems to me to be enabling stupidity – you can now do so many different things from the address bar that it’s impossible to tell what you’re doing. Whoopdedoo.
I agree with everyone here that ie8 is crap because it can’t be customized.
My solution is Firefox when they finalize their beta for Windows 7.
I just downloaded IE 8 an am very irritated by a few things. The BIGGEST being…I want the “HOME” button to be located as it was in earlier versions; to the immediate right of the “refresh” and “stop” buttons!!
At the moment in IE 8… the “home” button is located on the far right of the bottom toolbar! This is a HUGE inconvenience!!
Does anyone know how to relocate it? I have already tried the drag & drop routine, to no avail!
Disappointed by it’s inflexibility, I have taken the advice to try Firefox instead and having now used it, I cannot understand why anyone would want to use Explorer 8, let alone endorse it. Firefox is more intuitive and far faster. Goodbye Explorer8 and the so called experts who extoll its non-existent virtues.
Hi, I’m trying to figure out how to move the address bar above the Google toolbar. I have IE8 and before, I was able to move the toolbars around and now I can’t. So if anyone knows how to do this, please tell me how. Thanks!
I wont upgrade to IE7 or IE8 till I find a way to move the forward reverse buttons to the extreme right end of the tool bar. I can find no instructions to do that. Till then IE6 is working for me.
Does the MS ‘Team’ think people change a lot and therefore reinvent the usabiliy in each browser version? Their usability philosophy is still in development mode. MS does not listen to users (of diff needs) and does not keep things that work well and are useful. Ditto for the ‘ribbon’.
Is MS run by crap coders or managers that try to innovate (i.e. make some wheels squarish)? Maybe marketing need changes to justify their role with the argument that people wont buy it if its the same old same old.
I’ve used Word (on Pc) since first versions. I have developed workarounds for its many failings. BUT it was custoimiseable to suit ME.
Now it is not and I work much SLOWER. Before I could put an icon on the toolbar for obscure but important and often used settings (that professional such as tech writers like me needed). Now I have to RTFM!
Interestingly, –perhaps because Activex is not on the Mac?– the latest Mac version IS customiseable (ilke the good old days) and does not have a ribbon!
With netbooks being so popular, when will Microsoft add real customizing to IE8 so we can make one row of tool bars instead 2, 3, 4, 7 that IE8 has now. Why no Home button next to the address line?
I go to websites to view the sites. I am a photographer, I go to see visuals on the site. I do not use IE8 so I can continuously see row upon row of toolbars and then have to scroll to view an image.
Chrome, one row. Firefox, one row, IE1/3 of the screen of junk when using a netbook.
Is anyone at Microsoft listening?