IE Alias is an free extension for Internet Explorer that allows you to type in a user defined text shortcut in IE’s address box in order to launch your favorite site or sites.

Imagine being able to, say, type in FWG in Internet Explorer’s address box in order to launch the Freewaregenius site, without having to type the entire URL or clicking on a bookmark. Imagine further that, say, you type in “news” in the address box to launch your 4 favorite news sites simultaneously, or entering “freeware” to launch a handful of your favorite freeware sites, etc. This is what IE Alias allows you to do. Here are more notes on this program:

• How to set it up: click on the tools menu then “MuvExToE – IE Aliases Setup”. You will be presented with a dialog where you can define your shortcuts. For multiple sites launched using a single alias, you can either define the same alias repeatedly for all the sites you want to associate with it, or simply edit the row that contains the alias directly (see “editing” below).
• Editing aliases: is a cinch. Just click into the “cells” and edit, much like a spreadsheet (see screenshot).
• Max allowed URLs per alias: is not clear. I was able to successfully define 21 URLs tied to a single alias before I decided to stop.

The verdict: although there are other IE extensions that offer this functionality (e.g. ALtoolbar, IE7Pro), IE Alias is unique in that it allows you to use a single alias to open multiple URLs in multiple tabs or windows. These utilities, moreover, pack a whole lot of other functions that you might not need or want, while IE Alias simply does one thing (and at that it does it very well). Once you start using this and getting used to it just might become a tool that you depend on and use regularly. Try it out for yourself.

Version Tested: 1.0.0.0

Compatibility: Windows 2003/Vista/XP. Requires Internet Explorer 6 or 7, .NET Framework 2.0.

Go to the IE Alias page to download the latest version (approx 223K).