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browsing the web

Browser Basics

All web browsers have very similar features. Common features to all browsers are:

  • The Toolbar : Items that allow you to change and access certain features belonging to the web browser (such as the display options, the security settings, etc).
  • The Standard buttons : To allow you to navigate through webpages easily.
  • The Address Bar : Displays the URL of the webpage you are visiting.
  • The Progress Bar : Indicates the loading status of the webpage. It tells you how much of the webpage is downloaded and how many items remain to be downloaded before the webpage is completely loaded.

Some of the more common browsers your computer will have include:

Apple Safari

Safari

Microsoft Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer

Microsoft Internet Explorer 7

Internet Explorer 7

Standard Browser Buttons

     
Back Clicking this button will allow you to view the page you were viewing before the current page. Each time you click the "Back" button it will take you back to previously viewed documents in linear order.
Forward The forward button can be used in conjunction with the back button. It allows you to page through any documents that you have already visited.
Stop Pressing the stop button halts the current task. For example, if a website is taking too long to load, clicking the "Stop" button will allow you to halt the downloading of that web page, so that you can view another page.
Home Clicking this button will load the web browser's default web page. You can specify the homepage yourself by going into the options/preferences for the browser.
Refresh Quite often a page will not update to display the current data, especially if it is a site you have visited previously. Clicking the refresh button will force your browser to re-request the website, consequently re-loading the data on the page.

How to Browse
The first step to browsing is knowing what it is that you would like to browse. If you are new to the Internet you will soon discover that there is information on practically everything available to you on the Internet. If you know the web address of a site you would like to visit you can type that into the address bar. For example, typing in: www.iinet.net.au will take you to the iiNet website.

Once on a website, you can peruse their pages, and click the links to navigate through the website. Some links may take you to other websites, but you can always navigate easily through previously visited pages by using the "Back" and "Forward" buttons on your web browser.

If you do not know the address of a website you're looking for, you can always make use of Search Engines to find what you are after.

Using Search Engines
Search engines are very handy for finding information that you are after. There is no way that we can remember the full domain name of numerous websites, so search engines allow you to browse the Internet for all the websites pertaining to certain topics.

Some popular search engines include:

  • Google (http://www.google.com/)
  • Yahoo! (http://www.yahoo.com/)
  • Altavista (http://www.altavista.com/)
  • AskTed (http://www.askted.com.au/)
  • Dogpile (http://www.dogpile.com/)

For example, if you wanted to find information about star signs you could go to the Google website and in the search field type in: "star signs". The Google website will then return to you a list of all the sites that contain some information relating to the words "star signs".

Be careful to enter keywords that relate to your topic: for a general result, keep your keywords general; for a more specific search result, try to be as detailed as possible in your search (eg, search for "Capricorn star sign information").

Be careful what punctuation you include in your search, as these can affect your search results (eg, try doing the previous serches with and without quotes, and compare the results).

Bookmarking Webpages
It can be very frustrating trying to remember the exact URL of a web page you want to re-visit. To combat this, your web browser has the ability to record the address of a web page when instructed. To "bookmark" a page you add it to your list of "Favourties".

To add a webpage to your list of favourites in Internet Explorer:

  1. Make sure your web browser is currently displaying the web-page you wish to bookmark
  2. Click "Favourites" from the menu
  3. Select "Add to favourites"

Now if you wanted to access that listing in future you can click on "Favourites" and the page will be listed there.

If you want to view your "Favourites" listing at all times, simply click the button and your favourites folder will be displayed within a margin on the left-hand side of the browser.