Ninth Edition CoverGraziano & Raulin
Research Methods (9th edition)

Web Browser Tutorial

Welcome to the Web Browser Tutorial. Since you have elected to start here, we are assuming that you are generally unfamiliar with the concept of a Web Browser, how you would use the Web Browser to "surf the web," and how a Web Browser can help you to view the integrated website for this textbook. We will cover all of these topics, walk you through the use of the three most popular Web Browsers (Netscape, Firefox, and Internet Explorer), and provide a glossary of web terms. We should not that there are other web browsers available, such as Apple's Opera, but if you are familiar with one browser, it takes only a few minutes to become familiar with a new browser.. Give us 20 minutes of your time and you will have the basic skills needed to surf the web like a pro.

Web History

Although you do not need to know about the history of the web, or even how it is structured, to use web browser programs to access information, the history is very interesting. We have included a short history, which you can access by using the mouse to point the arrow to the title of this section and clicking the left mouse button. To return, click the return button at the bottom of the history file or click on the back arrow on the far left hand portion of the toolbar at the top of the screen.

Skepticism and the Web

The web browser and a connection to the Internet can open up an incredible world of entertainment, information, and fun. However, one must be careful to evaluate the quality of the information that one finds on the web. With an hour of training and a web-connected computer account, people can set up their own web sites, with almost anything that they want, and millions of people are doing just that. People use the web to publish their ideas about almost anything. Some of those ideas are well grounded, but unlike most other publication outlets, such as books, newspapers, journal articles, there is little or no quality control on the Internet. You will find a wealth of valuable and accurate information on one site, whereas the next site you visit will be filled with inaccurate and misleading information. Click on the heading for this paragraph to find out how to become a better consumer of web information.


Basics of Web Browser Use

If you elected to check out the history of the web by clicking on the "Web History" title, you have already experienced one of the most critical elements of the web. The web permits the easy and rapid connection of information to other information through hyperlinks. A hyperlink usually shows up on the screen of a web browser as text that is shown in a different color from the rest of the text and underlined. The words "click here" are shown below as a hyperlink. By clicking on those words (move the cursor to them with the mouse and depress the left mouse button), your browser program will automatically move its attention to reading the linked file. Give it a try.

Click Here

Note that the color of the "click here" hyperlink has now changed. Whenever you follow a link, the web browser keeps track of your action and reminds you that you have visited a particular link by changing the color of the link. The really amazing thing is that the program will change the color of ANY link to the file you have visited, even if it is on another page or on another web site. How long the program will remember which links you have visited is up to you. As you will see later, you can set this time interval yourself.

A hyperlink can also be a button, and many web sites use these buttons extensively. Pictures can also be hyperlinks. Sometimes, it is difficult to recognize what elements are hyperlinks just by looking at the screen. However, you can find hyperlinks by moving the cursor around the screen. When the cursor moves over a hyperlink, it will change from an arrow to a small hand. Clicking the left mouse button will take you to the web page that that link is pointing to.

Specific Web Browsers

In this tutorial, we will cover the operation of the three most widely used web browsers: Netscape Navigator, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Although these three programs look different in their operation, they operate in very similar ways. Once you get used to using one program, you can probably pick up how to use the other in a matter of minutes. We recommend that you click on the browser tutorial below for the browser that you are currently using to read this page. If you are unsure, the name of the browser program is in the upper left hand portion of the screen on the title bar. The title bar is typically blue in color.

 

Internet Explorer Tutorial
Netscape Navigator Tutorial
Mozilla Firefox Tutorial