Change privacy and other browser settings

Internet Explorer 11 for Windows Phone makes it easy to change privacy settings on your phone for the browsing experience you want.

To change basic Internet Explorer settings

1. In Internet Explorer, tap More 

   
    > Settings.
   

2. Change any of the following settings:

   • Under Website preference, select Mobile version or Desktop version to set which version of a website you'd prefer to see.
   • Under Use address bar button for, select Favorites or Tabs to set what the address bar button does. The choice you don't select will be available when you're browsing in Internet Explorer, under More
     
     . (You can also select Stop/refresh for the address bar button in Windows Phone 8.)
   • Tap Delete history to erase browser history, cookies, saved passwords, and temporary Internet files from your phone and any of your devices currently syncing Internet Explorer settings.

To change advanced Internet Explorer settings

1. In Internet Explorer, tap More

   
   > Settings, and then tap Advanced settings. (You can also access Internet Explorer's settings through Settings 
   
   in the App list.)
   
   
   
   

Change any of the following settings:

• Turn on Allow access to my location 
  
  to be notified when a site requests your location.
• Select Get suggestions from Bing as I type if you want to allow Bing search to suggest websites as you type into the address bar—potentially a big time saver.
• Select Show pictures automatically if you want Internet Explorer to automatically display the pictures on webpages you open. Turning off this setting might help reduce your phone's data usage. (This feature is not available on all Windows Phones.)
• Select Send browsing history to improve and (where available) personalize services (called Send browsing history to Microsoft to help improve Bing services on Windows Phone 8) if you want to help improve Microsoft services and personalize experiences on your phone.
• Select Use SmartScreen Filter to help protect against unsafe websites if you want to be warned about websites that have been reported to Microsoft as unsafe or suspicious.
• Select Send a Do Not Track request to websites you visit to signal to websites that you don't want your browsing to be tracked. (Even though you've expressed this preference, websites may continue to engage in activities you might view as tracking. This depends on specific websites' practices.)
• In Reading view preview, you can see what the current reading view settings will look like when they're applied to a website. Use the Reading view font size slider to change the text size. Under Reading view style, select Bright, Medium, Light, or Dark depending on your preferences for reading text-heavy web pages. (This feature isn't available on all Windows Phones.)
• Under Cookies from websites, select Accept all, Block some, or Block all to set which cookies Internet Explorer will accept. Block some blocks third-party cookies that don't have a compact privacy policy and third-party cookies that save information that can be used to contact you without your explicit consent. It also restricts first-party cookies that save information that can be used to contact you without your implicit consent.
• (Windows Phone 8 only) Under Open links from other apps in, select A new tab to open pages in their own tabs or The current tab to continue browsing in the same tab after you tap a link.
• Under Website passwords, select Remember, Don't remember, or Ask each time to define how Internet Explorer will handle passwords you enter into websites. (This feature isn't available on all Windows Phones.)
• Under Website file storage, select Allow sites to store files on my phone to allow websites to store things like in-progress emails or RSS feeds in your phone's storage. Tap Manage storage if you need to free up some storage space.
• (Windows Phone 8 only) Under Default search provider, select Bing or Google as your default search engine. (This feature isn't available on all Windows Phones.)