Internet Explorer Activity Monitor

• Download source files - 58.2 KB
• Download demo project - 48.71 KB

Introduction

This application is a simple but useful one. I used this application in a Windows Service which monitors the activity of the browser and the person logged-in at that time.

Adding Reference

Add a reference in your project to SHDocVw.dll. This is a COM component named Microsoft Internet Controls. It contains the definitions of the InternetExplorer and ShellWindows classes.

About the Code

The code can be divided into three parts:

1. Browser Open Activity
2. Browser Navigation Activity
3. Browser Close Activity

Following are the event handlers that are fired at their respective events:

// THIS EVENT IS FIRED WHEN A NEW BROWSER IS OPENED
        private void shellWindows_WindowRegistered(int z)
        {            
            string filnam;        
            
            foreach (SHDocVw.InternetExplorer ie in shellWindows)
            {
                filnam = Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(ie.FullName).ToLower();
    
                if (filnam.Equals("iexplore"))
                {
                    browser = ie;    
                        
                    bool check=true;

                    for (int i=0; i<Current_IE_Handles.Count; i++)
                    {
                        if (Current_IE_Handles[i].ToString()==browser.HWND.ToString())
                        {
                            check=false;
                        }
                    }
                        
                    if (check==true)
                    {
                        Current_IE_Handles.Add(browser.HWND.ToString());
                        this.listBox1.Items.Add("Browser Open : Handle
					( "+browser.HWND.ToString()+" )");
                        browser.BeforeNavigate2+=
			new SHDocVw.DWebBrowserEvents2_BeforeNavigate2EventHandler
			(browser_BeforeNavigate2);
                    }                        
                }
            }            
        }

When you type something like www.codeproject.com, this event is fired and here you can capture all the information about the Internet Explorer Navigation.

// THIS EVENT IS FIRED WHEN THE BROWSER IS JUST ABOUT TO NAVIGATE TO A WEBSITE
        private void browser_BeforeNavigate2(object a,ref object b,
		ref object c,ref object d,ref object e,ref object f,ref bool g)
        {
            this.listBox1.Items.Add(browser.HWND.ToString()+ " : "+b.ToString());
        }

// THIS EVENT IS FIRED WHEN A NEW BROWSER IS CLOSED
        private void shellWindows_WindowRevoked(int z)        
        {            
            string filnam;
            ArrayList Closed_IE=new ArrayList();
              
            foreach (SHDocVw.InternetExplorer ie in shellWindows)
            {
                filnam = Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(ie.FullName).ToLower();
    
                if (filnam.Equals("iexplore"))
                {
                    Closed_IE.Add(ie.HWND.ToString());
                }
            }    
        
            for (int i=0; i<this.Current_IE_Handles.Count; i++)
            {
                bool check=false;

                for (int j=0; j<Closed_IE.Count; j++)
                {
                    if (Convert.ToInt32(this.Current_IE_Handles[i])==
			Convert.ToInt32(Closed_IE[j]))
                        check=true;
                }

                if (check==false)
                {
                    this.listBox1.Items.Add("Browser Closed : Handle
			( "+this.Current_IE_Handles[i].ToString()+" )");
                    this.Current_IE_Handles.RemoveAt(i);
                    break;
                }
            }
        } 

Currently this application captures the activity of the Internet Explorer. A new and improved version will be posted shortly that can monitor the activity of user defined browsers.

Initial Work

I carried forward the work done by Steven M. Cohn. Check out his post at this link.

History

• 29^th October, 2005: Initial post