It's easy to get complacent about searching the Internet. After all, you can almost always find what you're looking for simply by heading over to Google and typing in a few words. But Internet Explorer's built-in search tools can make the task even less work, as long as you take control.

To display IE's Search pane, click the Search button in the browser's Standard Buttons toolbar (choose View, Toolbars, Standard Buttons if the button isn't visible). To see what's going on underneath Search's basic interface, click Customize. The resulting Customize Search Settings window shows the search sites IE employs when it searches for Web pages, addresses, and businesses (see FIGURE 1). Check boxes to choose from an assortment of preselected search sites, and prioritize the sites by clicking the arrow buttons to move selected sites up or down the list. The same window also lets you control which search engine IE uses to search for terms you type into the browser's Address bar. Click the Autosearch settings button, choose an engine from the drop-down menu, and click OK. Now when you type mukluks into IE's Address bar and press Enter, the browser will use the search engine you selected, not the default one.

What's that you say? Google's not listed as a search engine option in the aforementioned windows? Egad! To remedy that, type www.google.com/google.reg in the browser's Address bar, and either save the .reg file to your hard disk for future use or select Open this file from its current location and click OK to replace the standard IE Search pane with the Google search pane. The Google pane supplants IE's Search Assistant; after installation, all IE searches will happen through Google, except for searches on terms you enter in the Address bar, which will continue to use the search service you chose above. If you want to revert to IE's own Search panel, enter www.google.com/default.reg to run the Registry script that puts it back.

Send your questions and tips to nettips@spanbauer.com. We pay $50 for published items. Scott Spanbauer is a contributing editor for PC World.

• See more like this:
• Explorer,
• google,
• default,
• search,
• engine,
• powertools,
• aol,
• america online,
• internet tips