Edit or Create Tracking Protection List in Internet Explorer

If you are using a Tracking Protection List in your Internet Explorer, you may find that some elements of a web page that you want to be displayed, may not be getting displayed, thereby making the webpage look broken.

In such a case, you have two options. One is to create your own personalized tracking protection list, which will block only those elements which you want to be blocked, or use an existing Tracking Protection List and edit out some entries.

Create Personalized Tracking Protection List

Let us see how to create a Personalized Tracking Protection List in Internet Explorer.

From Internet Explorer’s Manage Add-ons settings box, click on Tracking Protection. Select Your Personalized List and Enable it. Browse for a day or two. After a few days, come back here and click on its Settings. You will see the box populated with entries.

Select the Choose contents to block or allow. Now individually go to each of the items listed under the Content Provider column, and select Block or Allow. This way, for instance, if you want the Disqus.com commenting section, Gravatars, AddThis sharing bars, etc to be displayed on the web pages you visit, it can be achieved.

You can also select the number of sites, from which the content providers should be shown. So if you select 3, then if, say Disqus, appears on 3 sites that you have visited, it will appear here in the list.

Your settings for the Personalized Tracking Protection List will be stored in the system registry at the following location:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Safety\PrivacIE\UserFilterData

Edit Tracking Protection List

If you have already downloaded and installed a ready-made Tracking Protection List, and are happy with it, except for the few items which it does not display, then you can simply edit the list.

The Tracking Protection List is a text file that is saved in the .TPL format and is located at:

C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Tracking Protection

Navigate here and open the file in Notepad. Remove the entry or the content you want to be displayed. For instance, if you want Kontera content to be displayed, delete kontera.com -d and save the file.

Restart Internet Explorer and you will find that the changes have taken effect.

These ready-made lists will keep themselves updated by automatically downloading the latest updates from the mother site.

So if your elements start getting blocked again, you may safely assume that the list has been updated. You will then have to delete the entries again. Or else, you could right-click on the file, select Properties and make the file Read Only.