Internet 101

Internet 101

What is the Internet?

 .

Introduction

A web browser is the tool that you use to access the World Wide Web. In order to get the most out of the Web, it's important to understand the various features of a browser.

In this lesson, we'll talk about navigating the Web with a browser, downloading files, bookmarking your favorite web sites, tabbed browsing, plug-ins and more.

Common Web Browsers

Today, Internet Explorer is the most popular web browser. Other browsers include Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera. Each one has its own look and feel, but they have the same goal: to display web pages correctly. For most web pages, any well-known browser will work.

Internet Explorer

Firefox

Chrome

Like most modern programs, browsers use a Graphical User Interface (GUI), which means you can navigate by pointing and clicking with a mouse instead of just typing. Some devices such as mobile phones use different types of GUIs, such as touchscreens. However, many of the principles remain the same.

Navigating to a Web Site

 Address Bar

Browsers have an address bar that shows the web address (also called a URL) of the page you are on. To go to a different page, you can type an address in the address bar and then press Enter (or Return).

The Address Bar

Links

Most of the time, you will get to a different page by clicking on a link. A link can be text or an image, and it's usually formatted to stand out so you know to click on it. Many text links are blue, and they may also be underlined.

For example, this is a link. It will open a web page in a new window, and you can close it to come back to this page.

A link may lead to another web page, or it could lead to a document, video, or any other type of file. If you're not sure if something's a link, hover the mouse over it. The pointer should change to a hand symbol.

Navigation Buttons

Sometimes, after you click on a link, you might want to go back to the previous page. You can do this using your browser's Back button. Once you've pressed the Back button, you can press the Forward button to follow the link again.

The Back and Forward Buttons

When you use the Back and Forward buttons, your browser may use its web cache to display the page. The web cache stores recently-viewed web pages so that they don't need to be downloaded again. That's usually good because it speeds up your web browsing, but sometimes you want to see the most up-to-date information on the page. You can use the Refresh button (sometimes called Reload) to tell the browser to load the page again.

If a page is taking too long to load, or if you've typed in the wrong URL, you use the Stop button to stop the page from loading.

The Refresh and Stop buttons

There are some instances where you don't want to use the navigation buttons. For example, in some online stores, you shouldn't refresh the page after purchasing an item, as it could cause you to purchase the item twice.

Search Bar

Most browsers have a built-in search bar for performing web searches. We'll talk more about those in the next lesson.

The Search Bar

Bookmarks

If you've found a page you'd like to go back to later, you can add it to your Bookmarks (sometimes called Favorites). Bookmarks make it easier to find a page later on. Instead of having to remember the exact web address, you can just scroll through your bookmarks until you see the name of the page.

• In Internet Explorer, you can add a bookmark by clicking Favorites and then Add to Favorites. Other browsers are similar, but they may use different wording.

Adding a Bookmark

Browsing History

Suppose you visited a page a few days ago but forgot to bookmark it. You can find the page again by using yourhistory, which is a list of web sites you've visited. Usually, pages will stay in the history for a certain number of days. To maintain privacy, you can delete your history at any time.

Viewing Your History

To view your history in Internet Explorer, click Favorites and then click the history tab.

Browsing history

Deleting Your History

In Internet Explorer, click Tools and then Internet Options. From there, you'll be able to delete your History or manage your history settings.

Internet Options

If you're using a browser other than Internet Explorer, the process of viewing and deleting history will be a little bit different.

Downloading Files

Your browser can display many different types of documents, media, and other files. But there are times when you'll want to access a file outside your browser. Downloading enables you to do this by putting the file on your computer in a place where you can access it.

For example, suppose you needed to complete and print a form that you found online. You could download it to your desktop, then open it with the appropriate program (such as Microsoft Word) to edit it.

How to Download a File

If you click on a link to a file, it may download automatically, but sometimes it just opens within your browserinstead of downloading. To prevent it from opening in the browser, you can right-click the link and selectSave Target As... (different browsers may use slightly different wording). You'll be able to choose the folder where the file is saved.

Since the process of downloading a file varies from site to site, it may require some trial and error.

Downloading a file

For various reasons, many sites do not allow you to download content. For example, YouTube does not offer a way to download its videos.

Saving Images

Sometimes you might want to save an image to your computer. To do this, right-click the image and selectSave Picture As....

Saving a picture

Some sites do not allow images to be saved to your computer.

Assessing the Search Results

After you do a search, glance over the first page of search results. Did it return what you are looking for, or is it just a lot of unnecessary "junk"?

If your search results don't seem very good, you may need to try different search terms. Remember, the search engine can't read your mind; it just looks for matching words. For example, if you just search for the word polish, the search engine doesn't know whether you're looking for shoe polish or a history of the Polish language!

You could improve your search results by searching for shoe polish. However, that still may return a wide variety of web sites, such as:

• Stores that sell shoe polish
• Guides on how to polish shoes
• The history of shoe polish
• And probably much more

To get the best results, ask yourself: What exactly am I looking for? Specific terms usually return better results.

Related Searches

A search engine will often recommend related searches that may be more specific than the search terms you used. Related searches are usually listed at the bottom of the page. Bing also lists them to the left of the search results.

Related searches can help you narrow down your search.

Advertisements

Search engines may include advertisements along with the search results. These ads are picked by the search engine based on your search terms, and they look a lot like the actual search results. While they may be useful in some cases, it's usually more effective to focus on the "regular" search results.

Google puts its ads (which it calls Sponsored Links) at the top and to the right of the search results.

Ads are usually at the top and to the right.

Specialized Searches

Are you looking for news articles, images, videos, or online stores? You can use a specialized search to search for a specific type of content. For example, if you do an image search, the search will find and display images for you, instead of finding links to pages that may or may not have relevant images.

Generally, a search engine will include links at the top of the page to go to the specialized searches.

Using an image search