When browsing the internet do you ever notice strange popups? Your homepage different from what you had chosen? Or generally strange behavior? All your internet browsers have a potential fix for this that you can do easily! It’s called resetting the browser and essentially it’s returning your internet browser to the original settings. Sometimes viruses change the settings within a browser and, even after they’re removed, the settings stay changed. This can continue to mess up your internet browsing, long after you removed the root cause of the problem.
By resetting your internet browser, all the settings return to their original format. Any extensions that could be negatively affecting your internet browser will be disabled. Of course, it can be useful to keep certain elements of the browser you had changed purposefully. That’s why the reset is so great. It generally doesn’t delete your personal settings – such as your saved passwords and download history. Personal settings don’t often cause problems with your browsers so you can keep those without worrying.
While there are a lot of different browsers out there, below are some of the most common browsers and how to reset them.
Internet Explorer
1. Open Internet Explorer and go to Settings (the icon of the mechanical wheel)
2. Click on Internet Options
3. Go to the ‘Advanced’ tab in the Internet Options window
4. At the bottom of the Window, click on the ‘Reset…’ button
5. Click on ‘Reset’ on the new window, without selecting ‘Delete Personal Settings’
6. Restart Internet Explorer
Microsoft Edge
1. Open Microsoft Edge and go to the main menu (the icon that looks like three dots ‘…’)
2. Click on Settings
3. Under ‘Clear browsing data’, select ‘Choose what to clear’
4. Check ‘Browsing history’, Cookes and saved website data’, and ‘Cached data and files’
5. Restart Microsoft Edge
Google Chrome
1. Open Google Chrome and go to the main menu (the icon that looks like three parallel lines)
2. Click on Settings
3. Scroll to the bottom of settings and click on ‘Show advanced settings’
4. At the bottom of advanced settings, click on ‘Reset settings’
5. Click on ‘Reset’ within the new menu that appears
6. Restart Google Chrome
Firefox
1. Open Firefox and go the main menu (the icon that looks like three parallel lines)
2. Click on the help section (the question mark at the bottom right of the main menu)
3. Click on ‘Troubleshooting information’
4. Under the section ‘Give Firefox a tune up’, click on ‘Refresh Firefox…’
5. Click on ‘Refresh Firefox’ within the new window that pops up
6. Click on ‘Finish’ within the Import Wizard window