More about Using a Web Browser

There are many millions of websites available on the WWW. You can make your exploration of the WWW more efficient if you know a few simple techniques. Different browsers do things slightly differently but are similar to the guidance offered here for users of Edge.

Favourites/Bookmarks

If you use a particular website a lot then you can add it to your list of Favourites (called Bookmarks in some browsers). Click on the Star button in the top right and then click on Add. When you next want to visit that website, simply click on the Favourites button:

find the site you want to visit and click on it.

You can organise your Favourites into folders. For example you could have a folder called Shopping and then you could add your favourite shopping sites, eg Marks and Spencer, John Lewis or Tesco, to that folder. This stops your list of Favourites from becoming too long and unmanageable.

History

If you visited a website last week and would like to visit it again but can't remember the address, then you can look at your browsing history and try to identify the site in that. Click the ... symbol at the top right and then click on History. This will then open a list of websites recently visited from this computer. Find the one you want to revisit and then click on it.

Back and Forward Arrows

Each time you connect to the Internet and start to visit websites, your browser keeps a record of which pages you have visited during that session. Using the left arrow at the top of the page you can go back (or forward using the right arrow) through those pages. If you click and hold on one of the arrows then it will show you a complete list of pages visited and you can jump to a particular page by clicking on it.

Note the right arrow will only be highlighted if you have first used the left arrow to jump back to an earlier page.

Home Button

At any time you can return to your Home Page by clicking on the Home Button which is the symbol of a house at the top left of the window. For example you may have been reading the news on the BBC News site and then you decide you want to check some shopping sites. You do not need to close your browser and restart. Just go back to your Home Page and start again from there.

Note that many websites (including this one) have a site home page. This is the page where you will normally enter the site. This is different to your browser Home Page which is the page which will be opened when you first open your browser.

Zoom in (or out)

If you have trouble reading a website then you can increase the size of objects on the screen to see things more clearly. Click on the Menu button at the top right:

then click on + or - to increase/decrease the size of text.

Stop and Refresh

Sometimes a webpage will fail to download. This may be because it is a popular site which too many people are trying to access. If a page seems to be taking too long to download you can stop it (by clicking on the large cross next to the back and forward arrows, the Stop button) and try again later.

If a page partially downloads and then stops due to a malfunction (usually a communications problem) you can use Refresh (the circular arrow next to the back and forward arrows) to download it again. The Refresh button can also be used to ensure that you are looking at the latest information on a frequently updated page, eg an interactive forum when people might be posting updates continually.