A Browser

A browser is a computer application that "understands" the languages (called protocols) of the internet. In order to connect to the internet, you must have this program. Most (normally all) ISPs give you a browser or install one on your machine. The most popular browser is called Internet Explorer and is published by Microsoft. It is freely available. If you don't like it (we will not compare browsers here; that's a complete subject that leads to personal preferences, long discussions, personal experience, and etc), you can use another. The second most popular browser is called Netscape (or Netscape Navigator). It is also freely available. If you still don't like it, there are other browsers such as Opera or Mozilla Firefox. (Without having time to compare browsers, we encourage you to try them all. Except for Internet Explorer and Netscape, the other browsers are mostly free but you are encouraged to help them by making a financial contribution. With Opera, if you don't pay anything, you get an advertisement banner...).

A browser is a window object made of five main sections:

1- The Title Bar: On top, it displays a title bar. The contents of the title bar depends:

2- The Main Menu: Under the title bar, a browser displays its main menu:

3- The Toolbar: Under the main menu, a browser is equipped with small pictures called buttons.

Microsoft Internet Explorer usually displays these buttons on their own range (called a toolbar):

Other browsers display their buttons on the left or even the right side. Some other browsers allow you to change the position of theses buttons
4- The Address: Either on the right side of buttons or under them, the browser is equipped with a wide box called the address (or the address bar
):

5- The viewing area: this is where you see the result:

Web Site/Web Page

A web page is an area of text and other fancy visual effects that you see when you get on the internet (actually it is a file but we haven't learned yet what a file is). A web site is a group of web pages that belong to one section of the internet, such as one person, one company, one school, or one government agency, etc (a web site is similar to a folder or directory but we haven't learned what a folder or directory are).

When you get on the internet, you actually access one or different web pages from one or different web sites. To access a web page, you must first get to the web site to which the web page belongs and you must know the name of the web page. The combination of a web page and the web site it belongs to is called its address. To get the address of a web page, you have four main options:

* If you know the web site that published the web page, you must first go to that web site. To do this, after opening the browser, in the address box, you can type the (complete) address of the page

* If you have already been to that web page before, you may have book marked it. In this case, you can "recall" the web page using the main menu of the browser or a button on the browser

* If somebody sent you the address, on the document (such as an email) that was sent to you, you may just click the address that was sent to you (called a link) and the browser would automatically open the web page

* If you are already on the internet and perform a search, the page that allowed you to do the search will present you with the address (called a link) of the page. You can just click it and you would be taken to that web page