HOW TO avoid the IE Information Bar during development

If you have ever tried opening a web page that contains JavaScript directly instead of from your web server in newer versions of IE, you may have noticed the message "To help protect your security, Internet Explorer has restricted this file from showing active content that could access your computer" displayed in the Information Bar in Windows XP & Vista.

There are three ways that I have found to avoid this -
1) You can turn off the Information Bar in Internet Explorer by lowering the default security settings.

2) In Internet Explorer, from the Tools menu, select Options and in the Internet Options dialog, select the Advanced tab. Scroll down until you see the Security options. Enable the checkbox option "Allow active content to run in files on My Computer".

3) Add the following Mark of the Web comment between the DOCTYPE and the HTML -


Read the excellent explanation on Mark on the Web on MSDN.

"..manually insert a MOTW when you are developing HTML pages that need to run in a different security zone from that of your development environment. With the MOTW inserted, you can preview active HTML documents in the appropriate security zone; typically this zone is the Internet zone, but Internet Explorer obeys your computer's security zone rules. This way you can make sure the active content functions as expected, and you can monitor any security issues with the content."

The phrase Mark of the Web is probably derived from Mark of Zorro. It brings back memories from my childhood comic book days of the masked Robin Hood-like hero Zorro, who scars the faces of evildoers with his mark, "Z"