My friend, John and I were talking a couple of weeks ago about a geek hassle we have all faced. Usually this happens at work but on occasion anywhere. Some specific websites are designed to open and function properly in Microsoft Internet Explorer…only. SharePoint seems to be one of the main offenders. They may open in other browsers; however, they will not function properly.
Since I am an advocate of the Google Chrome browser I hate when I am working on something in deep thought. I open a site in anticipation of reading something, completing a process or researching information and poof, it fails to respond properly. Then we all do the same thing, copy the URL from the failed site and paste it in MSIE to get where we need to be. What a hassle! 
Enter IE Tab. Chrome as well as other browsers, have extensions or add-ins depending on what they are called by each company. These allow additional features to be added to the browser that were not available originally. There are many types available which perform a wide variety of functions. They help you with your shopping, find articles, check the weather, help you navigate in your browser as well as your car and do hundreds, if not thousands of other things.
IE tab was built originally for Chrome but now comes in a version for Firefox as well. You can get it for Chrome while in the browser. Go to the three vertical dots in the upper right hand corner, when you hover there it will show “Customize and control Google Chrome” and click. Go down to “More tools” then “Extensions.” At the very bottom of the window you then click on “Get more extensions” and search for “IE Tab.” Finally click and install the extension. (As a shortcut, you can type “chrome://extensions” and skip many of those steps.) After IE Tab installs and you use it the first time you will be directed to install “IEtabhelper” which is needed to make it work. Do not worry, this is a safe app too.
Once all is done you will get a dark blue extension icon with an “e” to the right of your address bar. Right click it and then click on “Options.” Then scroll down to “Auto URLs” and start by entering an offending URL and click “Add.” The next time you go to that site which would not work correctly in Chrome it will now function flawlessly. It will continue working any other time you go there in the future. The makers of IE Tab say that it will properly use Java, Silverlight, ActiveX, SharePoint, and other Microsoft browser features.
One thing my buddy John mentioned is that he uses the Safari browser. Yes, even though he is my good friend he uses a MAC! I found this about Mac’s lack of IE Tab. It has it built in, sort of. While in Safari go to Safari, Preferences, Advanced Tab and check “Show Develop menu in menu bar.” This will place the Develop tab in the menu where under it you will find “User Agent.” There is a list of browsers so select the browser you would like Safari to emulate, then go to your web address. The only problem with this is that you must do this each time you need to visit that site again.
