Interacting with Web Sites Automatically

Web sites that provide some personalized service typically ask you to fill out a registration form when you first establish a relationship with the site and to log in by giving a username and password when you return to the site in the future. Filling out forms and typing in passwords are precisely the kinds of repetitive, mindless work that computers are supposed to do for us, so Internet Explorer provides a way to do these small tasks automatically.

Caution  

You should give some thought as to whether to let the browser remember passwords and which passwords to entrust to it. Once a browser has been allowed to remember a password for a personal account on a web site, anyone who uses your user account can get into that web account.

If you want Internet Explorer to remember passwords automatically for you, do the following:

1. Choose Tools Internet Options to open the Internet Options dialog box.

2. Go to the Content tab.

3. Click the Settings button in the AutoComplete area to open the AutoComplete Settings dialog box:

   

4. Check the User Names And Passwords On Forms check box. This setting means that Internet Explorer will insert the usernames and passwords it has memorized into the appropriate logon forms for web pages.

5. Check the Prompt Me To Save Passwords checkbox. This setting means that whenever you log into a site whose password Internet Explorer hasn't memorized, it will ask you whether you want it to memorize that password. If Internet Explorer already knows all the passwords you want it to know, leave this box unchecked.

6. Click OK in each of the open dialog boxes.

When these settings are in place, you will encounter the following dialog box every time you enter a new password:

Click Yes if you want IE to remember the password. Checking the Don't Offer To Remember Any More Passwords check box has the same effect as unchecking the Prompt Me To Save Passwords box on the AutoComplete Settings dialog box: Internet Explorer remembers and continues to use the passwords it knows but stops asking whether it should remember new passwords.

Occasionally, you may click Yes to remember the password and then later regret it. Unfortunately, there is no way to instruct Internet Explorer to forget one or two of your passwords but remember the others. If you want Internet Explorer to forget all the passwords it knows, open the Internet Options dialog box (as in the previous steps), click the General tab, and click Delete. On the Delete Browsing History dialog box, click Delete Passwords and click Yes.