The key to the Internet is an application known as a browser, so called because it lets you browse Web pages stored on other computers around the world. If you know the address (URL, or universal resource locator) of the Web site (group of pages) you want to visit, such as www.smartcomputing.com, you can simply type it in to the browser. Alternatively, you can search for keywords such as Smart Computing and then click the link of the search result that looks most likely to take you where you want to go.

Windows comes with a built-in browser called Internet Explorer. You don’t have to use it—you can download and install an alternative browser such as Firefox (www.mozilla.com/firefox) or Chrome (www.google.com/chrome)—but about 66% of the world’s Windows users stick with IE, according to Market Share.

Like all useful browsers, IE has certain basic features to help you find Web pages, view their content, and navigate to others (turn to the next two pages to see details about the most important features). The biggie is the Address Bar at the top of the screen. It tells you which Web site and page you’re currently browsing by showing you its URL, such as http://www.smartcomputing.com/techsupport/default.aspx.

In this example, “smartcomputing .com” indicates the domain, or Web site. The “techsupport/default.aspx” part after it represents a particular page on the site, that of our Smart Computing Tech Support Center. Meanwhile, the “http” part stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol, which is one of the key data communication methods of the Internet. The “www” section stands for World Wide Web. URLs use forward slashes (/) to separate parts of the Web address from each other.

Technically, a URL is simply a way to link to a numeric IP (Internet Protocol) address of another computer on the Internet but in a way that’s more understandable to the user. Thankfully, systems called DNS (Domain Name System) servers do the translating of URLs to IP addresses, so you don’t have to remember to type 12.39.144.5 to visit SmartComputing.com, for example.

When you browse to a new Web page, it will take a few seconds or more to appear as the data makes its way across the miles to your PC. While you're waiting for the page to load, you may notice the Status Bar at the bottom of the browser window. It may read “Downloading” next to the URL and display a progress bar when it’s still waiting for part of the page to arrive, or it may read “Done” when there’s no more data on the way.

Finally, if you want to return to the previous page to look at something you missed or to click a different link, click the Back button. Once you do so, you’ll notice that the heretofore grayed-out Forward button is now clickable. The Forward button will take you to Web pages you browsed more recently and in the order in which you viewed them.

These are just the basics of browsing, but they’ll get you started. Check out the rest of the articles in this month’s feature package for more advanced tips. Oh, and welcome to the Web.

by Marty Sems