Internet Explorer 11 is Microsoft’s propriety browser. It is evident that Microsoft has tried to integrate the company’s products like Skype, OneDrive, etc. deeply into Windows 10. So whenever we came around a webpage having phone numbers on it, IE 11 detects them automatically and invokes the default phone application i.e. Skype to call these numbers; when you click the number.
This feature may come in handy to those users who use Skype as their primary calling way through their Windows. But there may be some who may want to disable this functionality because accidentally clicking on these phone numbers takes you to Skype, which may interrupt your browsing. In this article, I’ll show you how to disable the automatic phone number detection by IE 11:
Disable Phone Number Detection in IE 11
1. Press Windows Key + R combination, type put gpedit.msc in Run dialog box and hit Enter to open the Local Group Policy Editor.
2. In the left pane, navigate here:
Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Internet Explorer > Internet Settings > Advanced settings > Browsing
3. In the right pane, look for the setting named Turn off phone number detection and double click on this setting to get this:
4. In the above-shown window, click on Enabled. Click Apply followed by OK. Here is what you need to know about this policy:
This policy manages the work of phone numbers detection which are recognized by standard. So when it is done with phone number inspection, it links the detected phone number with Skype. Progressively when the user click on these links, he/she get an pop-up to call or save the number to his/her contacts.
5. Enable the same setting for the user side as well:
User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Internet Explorer > Internet Settings > Advanced settings > Browsing
You may now close the Group Policy Editor and reboot the machine to get results. In case you want to revert the changes i.e. to allow phone number detection, you can set the same policy to Not Configured or Disabled status and IE 11 will again inspect phone numbers for you.
That’s it!
