How to Turn Off I.E.'s Active Scripting

Active Scripting is Microsoft's name for its own implementation of JavaScript, which is widely used on the Internet to provide interactivity on web sites.

Many sites, including mine, use JavaScript and will not display properly if JavaScript (or Microsoft's Active Scripting) is turned off.

However, often there are security holes that are discovered in Internet Explorer's implementation of JavaScript (it's implemented in each browser, so a hole in one doesn't mean that there's a hole in a different browser., you should turn it off. That's why I recommended in the first article that you install Firefox now.

You can change your Internet Explorer security settings in two places. Both open the same menu program. You can start Internet Explorer and, from the menu bar, pick Tools, then Internet Options.


Alternatively, you can click on Start, Control Panel, "Network and Internet Connections," and Internet Options.

Either way, you get this user dialog box:


Select the Security tab. Then, click on the globe labelled Internet, and then click on the button "Custom Level..."

A new, smaller window labelled Security Settings will open.
Scroll to the bottom of the list of settings.
Scroll up a few entries (4 in my case) to "Scripting - Active Scripting"


By default, this will say "Enable." Rather than completely disabling Active Scripting, let's change it to Prompt. That way, on sites we trust, we will be inconvenienced by having to click "Yes" for every JavaScript on the page, when I.E. asks if we want to allow the script to run.

Click on the radio button labelled "Prompt"
Click the OK button at the bottom of the dialog window

Now, you will be back to the Internet Options dialog box. Click OK, and you will be done.


Now, if you didn't do that from the first article, go read about Firefox, download it and start using it for all your web browsing needs. Hopefully, you will already have downloaded it and switched to Firefox. Otherwise, you will get a dialog box for every JavaScript that is on every web page. Sticking with I.E. when it is in Prompt mode is a pain.

Try Firefox. You will be a lot happier and have a lot less security worries.