Just got my desktop back up and running after a lengthy period of exile to laptop-dom, and after updating everything (and switching to Microsoft Security Essentials because my old security suite’s license/subscription was no longer good) I noticed this. Seems kind of odd, as the other computers I’ve been using haven’t had that (shortcut’s named “Internet Explorer” like always), but I was wondering if maybe that’s an effect of the current ie9 installer.
Basically I want to know if it’s fishy or normal, I guess. I’d rather avoid the whole bleeping computer rigamarole if this is just a stupid question on my part or something easily checked. Google search was not giving me any useful results.
Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit
Alienware desktop (can’t remember the model, it’s from late '04-early '05)
Intel Pentium 4 (yeah I know)
4 gb RAM
Microsoft Security Essentials
Current Firefox version
It’s not the same thing as the IE icon–it’s just an icon that always points to the default web browser. Right click on it, and you’ll see options that are different from the ones you usually see on a shortcut. I know it doesn’t have to do with IE9, as I have it on my Windows XP netbook, and IE9 doesn’t run on XP. On the other hand, my Windows 7 box doesn’t have it, despite having IE9 installed.
In Windows XP, it appears I got it by dragging the Internet shortcut off of the Start Menu and onto the desktop. Did you do anything like that?
Not an answer but you can change the name of any shortcut but selecting it and pressing F2 or right clicking on it. You could take a shortcut to Firefox or Chrome and rename it “The Internet”
BigT, not recently, no. It does have the distinct right-click menu items, as you mentioned. If it wasn’t updating to ie9 that did it then I’m guessing it was one of the dozens of MS software updates Windows Update pulled down once I was up and running. Either way, if it’s just a Windows thing then I don’t mind it. I just wanted to check whether it was anything to be worried about since I had to go through a whole tech-support process to clear an infection just before I wound up being unable to use my PC for several months, and now that I could finally get it set up again the last thing I wanted was to find out they had missed something.
BigT is correct “The Internet” isn’t a link to a specific browser, it links to whatever browser is your current default. I don’t think you have anything fishy going on… but if you’re unsure, you can just make a new IE (or whatever browser you like) shortcut and toss “The Internet” into the recycle bin.
Properties is one of the items that “The Internet” doesn’t have. There may be something called Internet Properties (or Internet Options) or somesuch, but that will open the Internet control panel.