Web Browsers
Introduction to Web Browsers
Now that you know basically what the internet is, you need to learn how to access the internet. Usually web access is accomplished by using a web browser. A web browser is a program that lets you access the world wide web and websites and, well, browse through them. Its basic job is to render the code (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc) into what you see on the screen including images and hyperlinks that take you to different pages. The web browser is perhaps the most important part of using the internet besides the existence of the internet itself. It allows users who may not know that much about computers an opportunity to use the fantastic resource that is the Internet and at the same time allows pros to manipulate pages in fantastic and imaginative ways. What the web browser really is, is a door. As cheesy as it sounds, that's what it is.
Web Browsers
Kinds of Browsers
There is more that one kind of web browser, in fact, there are probably dozens of browsers out there. Five of the most popular browsers today are Internet Explorer (IE), Firefox, Safari, and Opera -- these are the browsers you will see and hear the most about -- and each browser may have several different versions available. It's always important to have the most recent version of the browser. What distinguishes the various browsers from each other is a combination of the level of compliance with the web standards and what features they offer. Each of these browsers and editions have pros and cons and choosing a browser becomes a personal preference as well as a practical one.
| Of Note | Most web browsers are free. Even Opera recently had all of its ads and banners removed (from the browser, not from all web pages) |
| Important! | Just because most browsers are free, doesn't mean all of them are! The browsers listed below are free. |
The Browsers
- Internet Explorer 6 (this is no longer available for download - however it is still used)
- Internet Explorer7
- FireFox
- Netscape Navigator
- Safari (Mac OS only)
- Opera
- Konqueror
- And more! All I've listed are the most popular browsers.
IE Shells
There are some 'browsers' that you may know about that I didn't list up there. This could be for one of three reasons. Either I didn't think that the browser was widely used enough to warrant listing it, I hadn't heard of it, or it wasn't a stand-alone browser. I really hope I don't have to explain the first two. The third I might. A stand-alone browser is one that is not based almost entirely on another browser. The ones listed here are almost entirely based on Internet Explorer and thus are merely a cover-up for the browser. Here's a list of IE Shells:
- AOL Browser
- Enigma Browser
- Netscape Browser (note that this is different than Netscape Navigator)
- Slim Browser
- And more that I have not listed
Standards
Standards are a really simple thing, but they're really important. Standards ensure that a single web page will be rendered the same way in any browser without any special or messy lines of code. The group that comes up with these standards is the Word Wide Web Consortium (W3C). They determine what is proper CSS code, HTML code, JavaScript code and more. They also publish guidelines for proper webpages and the use of various code. Why is this an issue? Because not all browsers have the same level of support for standards. Newer browsers like Firefox, Opera, and IE7 are improving their support of standards and webpages that render well in these newer browsers may not show up in older ones.
Extensions and Themes
Some of the features that are being added to browsers are tabbed browsing, RSS, customizable toolbars, [more]. Tabbed browsing and RSS are probably the most popular additions, and are quickly becoming standard features in browsers.
Tabs allow you to keep several different web pages open in a single window and quickly open links in background -- that is, they don't show up on top of your current window -- which helps you browse the web faster. Some browsers also have the ability to save all the tabs in a window under a folder in your bookmarks at the same time.
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, they are also sometimes known as live bookmarks. RSS allows you to check all the headlines on your favorite news site or blog without having to actually go to the site. They accomplish this by placing buttons in one of the toolbars at the top of the browser, one click and you have a drop down menu of all of that sites headlines. You can utilize RSS by going to a website and clicking on either the orange square (
) or the letters RSS.
Extensions
Extensions are usually small programs that enhance your web browser. These can range from a toolbar that helps web developers see how other pages are built to a small program that lets you see things written the way the Swedish Chef from the Muppets would say it. There is probably an extension for everyone out there, and the vast majority of them are free!
Firefox has a complete list of their extensions.
Opera calls their extensions widgets.
Most of Safari's extensions are located in a program called Dashboard.
IE also has a list of their extensions. However, they are not all free.
There will be more on extensions in Chapter 4: 1.4 Multimedia Components (plug-ins and players).
Themes
Themes are slightly different than extensions. Extensions add small programs to your browser, themes change the appearance of your browser. This allows you to customize the look of your browser. For example: if you're a Mac user and just switched to Firefox and don't like the style of the browser, you can install a theme that will make Firefox look like a Mac browser.
Firefox has a list of all of their themes.
Opera also has a list of their themes.
Web Caches
In order to browse the web your browser must fetch information from the web page and bring it back to your computer. However, this also takes bandwidth, and when you visit a page frequently - like your blog or your favorite search engine - you wind up bringing the same information back to your computer day after day. Same username, same layout, images, etc.. So your browser will save some of this info in its cache. This allows you to view these webpages faster, but it has raised some concerns about privacy and copyright infringement. Should web sites like Google (they use caches to allow you to view web pages even if the site server is down, try doing a search and clicking the link 'Cached' next to the URL) are allowed to duplicate copyrighted sites? United States Copyright laws say yes. [Got info from Wikipedia - should the US law be cited? And I'm not sure it's really needed...]Vbnearing 16:14, 29 June 2006 (EDT)
Emptying your browsers cache is probably a good thing to do once in a while, probably every other week, and if you're having difficulties with the browser. This is because if you have a lot of data in your cache it could very well be slowing up your browser.
| Important! | Remember to clear out your cache periodically, it'll help speed up your browsing! |
Cookies
| Of Note | This needs revision. My definition is slightly off. |
There has been a lot of debate about cookies in the past 6 years or so. What is all the uproar about? What exactly are cookies anyways? And no, I'm not talking about the really yummy fresh-out-of-the-oven type cookies. Here is the basic concept of a cookie: a cookie is a small text file that a web server can put on your computer. Here's what a basic cookie looks like
PREF
2008-01-17 14:14:07 -055
172691860.011908
/
.google.com
ID=ad68a4ea44d3ade5:TM=1150999063:LM=1150999063:S=I_p5Pw_pwuAG-kh8
The first line is the file name, the second is when it expires and will be deleted, the third is when it was created, the fourth is the path, the fifth is the domain it came from, and the fifth is a string containing the information the website is looking for.
The point of a cookie is for a web site to be able to keep tabs on your preferences (e.g. if you want google.com to give you 50 results per page instead of 10) or to serve as a shopping basket for online stores (e.g. when you add something to your 'cart' on amazon.com you're really adding a value to a cookie, which will then be sent back to Amazon). Simple. It isn't a program, it can't do anything on it's own, it sits on your machine and gets sent back to the web server when it's needed or until it expires.
So what's the uproar? Privacy. When a user doesn't know what information about them is being sent back to who, it can be pretty creepy. Usually the data is fairly benign - what sites you visit (and usually isn't that accurate -- if you use multiple computers to access the same site you'll have multiple profiles built by cookies) and most of the time the data is anonymous. What do they use if for besides keeping your settings? They build a profile. It sounds kind of sinister, but usually the profiles are just to try and figure out what kind of user is visiting their site. What browser are they using? What Operating System? How many colors, what's their screen resolution? But cookies can be used maliciously, sometimes ads can leave cookies to track what you've been doing over multiple web pages and if the data is not being securely sent there is a risk of the data being hacked. There are attempts at enacting laws to restrict cookies, but enforcement has been difficult. So how do you keep these cookies at bay? Delete 'em. You can do this by deleting all of your 'temporary internet files', or, if you're on a Windows machine, by going to the location c:windowscookies and deleting the files you find there. You may loose some of your settings temporarily on some sites, but most of them (like google) will just place a new (harmless) cookie.
| Important! | Remember to periodically delete your cookies - you could have a tracking cookie. |
URL History
The URL history is basically just a list of recently visited websites. It's what allows you to go back and find that one really cool site you saw yesterday but just can't remember how you found it. Why is it an issue? For two reasons. Reason number one is simply that eventually your history starts to slow up your browser. Not much at first, but it's kind of like a drain -- a single grain or hair wont really do that much to clog it up, but fifty, one hundred, two hundred hairs or grains? It starts to make an impact. Clearing out your history just clears out a bunch of junk that you don't really need, after all, if you really want to save a web site you can just bookmark it. The second reason is the same idea behind cookies. Your history helps build a profile of you and your habits, and while it may be anonymous, you still don't really want it picked up by someone.
| Important! | Three guesses what I'm going to say. Delete your history once in a while - or better yet, set your preferences so that your history automatically deletes itself every day or so. |
How to clean it all up:
Now you know that you need to semi-routinely clean up this stuff, how do you do it? A word of warning: it's different on almost every browser. The best was to find out is to just poke through the toolbar up at the top. It'll usually be under preferences, file, or history. But here's how to find the stuff you need to clear out the cookies and URL history:
- Safari: in order to clean out your URL history, all you need to do is go to your menu, click 'History', and click 'Clear History'. To empty your cache: go to 'Safari', then 'Empty Cache...'
- IE: Go to 'Tools', 'Internet Options...' Then click 'Delete Files...' under Temporary Internet files, and 'Clear History' under 'History'. You can also tell the browser how many days to keep URLs in your history here.
- Firefox: Go to 'Tools', 'Options...', then click the privacy tab, and here you can clear the history and cookies and set how many days you want your browser to keep URLs in your history. You can also clear your cache from this tab.