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You know it's time to learn how to use a browser when you find yourself cursing more than surfing the net! This page will help you cut out the aggravation by teaching you certain browser basics like, where to enter URLs and search terms, using your navigation arrows, creating new tabs, how to save your favorite websites, and how to scroll down a webpage.
Knowing where to enter web addresses and search terms can sometimes be confusing when you're first learning how to use a browser. This part of the tutorial will walk you through this task.
A web address also known as a URL is generally entered in your address bar at the top of the browser. Try this, navigate your cursor to your address bar and left click once. Begin typing the web address of the website that you want to go to. Once the web address is fully entered you can hit the enter key on your keyboard. The website will then show up.
Be sure to end your web address with the correct suffix . For example, if your address ends with a .com , make sure you enter .com and not .org .This will ensure that you are brought to the right website by your browser.
There are several options when it comes to searching for a specific search term. The first way is to use a search engine. Take Google for example, you can type Google.com into your address bar, hit enter, and search for your term on Google's homepage.
Secondly, you can use your browser's search bar if it has one. Your search bar is usually located at the top right of your browser just to the right of your address bar. To use it simply type in your search term and click the magnifying glass symbol or hit the enter key on your keyboard.
If you don't want to use the methods mentioned above, you can type your search term directly into your address bar and hit enter. This didn't used to work in browsers 10 years ago but this works great with most modern browsers.
Traveling up or down a webpage is what we call scrolling. You can scroll a webpage a few different ways. First you can scroll down or up by using the arrows located at the top right and lower right corners of your browser. To use them simply left click them.
Another way to scroll a webpage is to drag the scroll bar up or down.This is done by hovering your cursor over the browser bar, left clicking, and holding down your left click. Then move your mouse away from you or towards you depending on which way you want to scroll the page.
A fast and precise way to scroll a webpage is to use the wheel on your mouse located between your left and right click buttons. Not all mouses have a scroll wheel but if yours does you can use it by left clicking one time on the webpage and then rolling your wheel up or down.
It is completely up to you how you do it but as for me I use the scroll wheel because it is so simple and easy to manage.
Sometimes you realize that you want to go back to the page or website that you were just that . Having to retype the address of the previous page into the address bar just to go back every time would be a complete pain. This is why your browser has a back arrow button and forward arrow button.
Every browser available today has a back button and forward button. They are located at the top left of your browser and generally have arrows on them. When you come to a point where you want to return to the page you were just previously on, you can left click the back arrow button. Once you click the back arrow button, the browser will bring you to the previous page you were viewing.
Okay now let's say that you used the back button to return to the previous page or website you were on but now you want to return to the page you just left. To do this you would just need to left click the forward arrow one time and it will bring you back to that page.
As you can see, your browser's back and forward buttons are a simple feature but a huge time saver!
Sometimes when you're searching the Internet you'll come across webpages or websites that you'd like to save for future reference. This happens to me all the time and thankfully I have my favorites list to turn to! Every web browser has a favorites folder that can be used to save links that go to your favorite sites.
There are a couple different ways to add a website to your favorites list. How you do it depends on what browser you are useing. Below are some clear examples of how this can be done in Mozilla Firefox, IE, and Google Chrome.
To save a page to your favorites list in Goggle Chrome, you just click the star symbol at the top right of the browser. It will then give you an option to name the website link you're saving and an option to choose which file you want to save it to. You can save it to your bookmarks toolbar which is located right below your address box or you can save it to your favorites folder. After you choose a name and location, click the done button. This is how it's done in Mozilla as well.
The process is very similar in Internet Explorer. Navigate to the top right of the browser and click the star symbol. Then click "Add to Favorites". A window will pop up with the options to choose a name and location. When you're finished, click "Done".
Now you know how to save a website to favorites but that's no help if you dont know how to access your favorites list right!? Let's say you have 3 websites saved in your favorites list and you want to quickly navigate to one of them. You would need to go to the location where you saved them. If you saved them to your bookmarks bar, you can just left click the link from there as seen below and your browser will bring up your website.
On the other hand, if you saved them to your favorites folder you will have to navigate to the top right and and find your folder. This is easily done by clicking the tab that says "bookmarks" or "favorites" as seen below... In older versions of browsers you will locate your favorites tab in the top left side of your browser.
As you can see, knowing how to do this saves you a lot of time on retypeing your address every time you want to revisit a site or page!
You can think of a new tab as a window inside your original window. Allow me to explain...
Picture this, you open your browser and start to search the Internet. You get to a website and start reading. Halfway through reading you remember that you want to check your Facebook account or navigate to another website. How would you do it without having to leave Craigslist? This is where new tabs come in handy. New tabs allow you to browse multiple websites all in the same browser window.
So let's just say that I visit craigslist.org and after being there for a short while I decide I want to take a look at Facebook.com . To do this I'd open a new tab by clicking the new tab button to the right of my already opened tab. This is generally done the same in most modern browsers.
Now with my new tab selected, I would type Facebook.com into my address box and hit enter. Once Facebook showed up, I would browse it in my new tab. To view craigslist again, I'd simply left click the Craigslist tab. To browse Facebook again I click the Facebook tab. To delete or exit a tab, select the tab by left clickin it once and then left click the X located on the right side of the tab.
Creating new tabs in your browser can be done multiple times. You can literally have 10 websites or more open at a time and navigate back and forth to them as fast as you can click.
Knowing how to open a new tab is a great thing especially if you're trying to do research on a specific subject.
