Surf via Windows Calculator or even Notepad

This needs further exploration.

I found that if you open Notepad or even the Windows Calculator, etc. You can click the 'Help' tab - then 'Help Topics', then access a *hidden* option called 'Jump to URL' - this is found by Right-Clicking the blue Title Bar. You then type in the URL (including http://)

My Firewall then picked up on the fact that Windows Calculator / Notepad, etc wanted to access the internet.

This is most interesting and I shall be testing this a bit further. I'm more interested in what kind of (if any) bypasses you can pull of with this - ie bypassing MIMEsweeper, etc.

I am somewhat overcome by this discovery and cannot wait to test it further.

You can even do it via MS Paint. It's cool as it doesn't open an IE window, it seems to go via the application itself.

I shall Google for info on this - I quite like it - it's like I have discovered peanut butter or something.

Pretty neat trick

it's called internet explorer being integrated into everything including the help (since it's HTML help these days).

I'm typing this in paint help :P

What bypasses could you pull off with this?