When using Internet Explorer 7 to read email through my ISPs webmail facility I notice that the messages do not display correctly, but instead only display the sender and subject but no message content. However, if I use Mozilla Firefox the messages appear correctly. How can I get this to work in Internet Explorer 7?

There could be several reasons why the webmail does not appear correctly through Internet Explorer 7 but does through Firefox. The first possibility is that something has been disabled in Internet Explorer 7 which is enabled within Firefox. Internet Explorer 7 includes many security improvements which could potentially be blocking the proper display of the webmail. We can get around this issue by putting the webmail site into the Trusted Sites zones within Internet Explorer. This is only subject to the “Medium” security level, unlike the Internet zone (i.e. all other websites) which are subject to ?Medium-high? security. Open Internet Explorer and go to the “Tools” menu > “Internet Options”. In the window that appears, click the “Security” tab and select the “Trusted sites” zone. Click the “Sites” button and type the address of the webmail site. If the webmail site is a secure site (https://) then you should be able to simply type the address and click “Add”. However, if the site is insecure (http://) you will need to make sure the option at the bottom of the window “Require server verification (https:) for all sites in this zone” is disabled (unticked). Once the site has been added, click “Close” and then OK. Restart Internet Explorer, and then visit your webmail site. In the status bar at the bottom of the window you should see the zone is now “Trusted” instead of “Internet”. If the zone is still “Internet” this means you mis-entered the address when adding the site to the trusted zone. In this case, double-check the address and go back into the options to make any necessary amendments.

Should the problem continue, it is unlikely related to a security setting within Internet Explorer. In this case, the more likely explanation is that the webmail interface does not work with the new version of Internet Explorer. Many complex web pages have difficulty opening across different browsers, especially new versions of browsers which may have changed their page rendering engine. To test this theory, you will need to find another computer running Internet Explorer 7 and check whether the same problem also occurs on that computer. If the problem continues, it is with the webmail interface not being compatible. In this case, I suggest that you contact your ISP to check whether they are aware of this problem, and if they intend to implement a webmail system compatible with Internet Explorer 7. In the meantime, you will need to continue using Firefox to view webmail.

However, in the scenario that the problem does not occur on a different computer, it seems the problem is dependent on your particular computer. In this case, please contact me again for further advice on this issue.