Accelerator (Internet Explorer)

An Accelerator in Internet Explorer (versions 8 through 11) was a context menu add-on that allowed users to quickly invoke external web services on selected text or other content within a webpage. Accelerators aimed to streamline common tasks by providing direct access to related services without navigating away from the original webpage.

When a user highlighted text or an image and right-clicked, the context menu displayed available Accelerators. These Accelerators were associated with various web services, enabling actions such as translating selected text, mapping an address, emailing content, defining a word, blogging a selection, or searching for information about the selected item.

Accelerators were installed as browser extensions and were registered with Internet Explorer to appear in the context menu. The list of available Accelerators could be managed through the Internet Explorer settings.

While Accelerators provided a convenient way to access web services, they were largely replaced by more modern browser extension technologies and functionalities, such as built-in context menu options and more versatile extension APIs offered by other browsers. Microsoft discontinued support for Internet Explorer 11, including its Accelerator feature, in June 2022.