Tech Tip

AutoComplete is a feature in Internet Explorer that allows you to save time when typing in web addresses in the Address Bar, or filling out forms, or doing searches in Google or other search engines.

Here’s how it works. Say you visit the JibJab site by typing jibjab.com and pressing Return. The next time you want to visit JibJab, all you have to do is type a “j”….. and if you have AutoComplete activated, you will see the jibjab.com address pop on the screen. In fact, any web site you have typed in the Address Bar that starts with “j” will pop on the screen. Simply select the site you want to go to (in this case – jibjab) with the arrow keys or the mouse, and you immediately go to that site.
OK – so if this is not happening on your computer – or conversely, if this is happening on your computer and you want to shut off this feature, then you need to customize your AutoComplete feature.

Here’s how:

Click on the Tools menu.
Click on Internet Options.
Click on the Content tab.
Click on the AutoComplete button.
Here you see 3 options for the AutoComplete feature.
    Web Addresses
    Forms
    User names and passwords on forms
Click on the box next to “Web Addresses” if you want your computer to remember the addresses you type in Address Bar. When you start to type an address, it will popup. Deselect the box if you don’t want to use this feature.
Click on the box next to “Forms” if you want Internet Explorer to remember the words you type in the Google Search box (or whichever search engine you use). Next time you search for that item, it will pop up when you start to type it. Deselect the box if you don’t want to use this feature.
Click on the box next to “Use names and passwords on forms” to remember passwords you use in forms and websites you visit. Deselect the box if you don’t want to use this feature.

There are 2 other options in this window. You can ask Internet Explorer to clear AutoComplete history in forms and passwords. The forms history are the words you type in the Google Search box when you do searches. (Did you ever wonder how to get rid of these search items – this is how!)

AutoComplete can be a great time saver. It can also be a real pain if you have dozens of sites in your history. So if you want a fresh start, go ahead and clear the history.

One last thing – if you want to clear only selected items from the Google Search box (or from whatever search engine you use) and not every item, you can begin to type the beginning letters and when you see the popup of the items, use the down arrow to move to that item you want to delete and press the Delete key. It’s gone! And so am I!