Web Talk

The new Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) has got a serious problem. A lot of users are complaining that they can’t play any flash video and game as well as Java applet. Let’s make a couple of example to see and understand the problem and  in what situations it is clearly visible. When Internet Explorer 9 users try to open websites or blogs containing Java applets, the area where the applet should be visible is completely blank . A white background will replace the applet. The applet that is not working is a specific Internet Explorer 9 problem as it doesn’t happen on Internet Explorer 8 which works smoothly. In other cases instead, when Internet Explorer 9 users try to open websites or blogs containing a video or a TV show for example, they won’t get anything. No sound, no image. Nothing at all. They will only get an error message or warning stating that Adobe Flash, Shockwave Player or Silverlight is not detected or installed and that they cannot play any video etc. Of course, Flash, Shockwave, Silverlight and Java are correctly installed on the machine. Let’s see  how to fix this issue.

All these problems are due to the fact that  Java applets have been blocked and filtered by the new Internet Explorer 9 ActiveX Filtering feature which ensures safe surfing to its users. Untill Internet Explorer 9 won’t be fully compatible with Java you won’t be able to play any video, sound or music relaying on such technologies. The workaround here is to turn off and disable ActiveX Filtering:

1. Open Internet Explorer 9
2. Click the Gear icon located on the right of the browser window.
3. Click Safety from the menu. It is located under the Zoom option.
4. Untick the  ActiveX Filtering option.
5. If instead you wish to turn off the ActiveX Filtering for a specific website, go to the website you wish to see video, music or Java content of.
6. Hover over  the “No Through Traffic” icon located at the right end o the address bar with your mouse. This will trigger a special dialog-box stating that “Some Content is Filtered on This Site”. Click the Turn off ActiveX Filtering button.