Internet, Web & Internet Browsing: All you need to know

THE SUBJECT TERMS RELATING TO INTERNET BROWSING :

“there are various terms and words that must be pragmatically analyzed before the subject “internet browsing” will be fully elucidated, this words/terms includes:

1. INTERNET

INTERNET CAN IN “A NUTSHELL” BE DEFINED IN THE FOLLOWING SIX WAYS

A computer network consisting of a worldwide network of computer networks that use the TCP/IP network
protocols to facilitate data transmission and exchange.
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet
Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users worldwide.
Any set of computer networks that communicate using the Internet Protocol. (An intranet.); The
Internet, the largest global internet.
A worldwide system of interconnected networks and computers.
The global computer network.
An international network, consisting of independently managed networks using the TCP/IP protocols
and a shared naming system. A successor to the ARPAnet.

Intranet: A private network within an organization often protected from Internet traffic by a “firewall” (software that controls access from the outside).

2. BROWSING

THE TWO DEFINITION BELOW BEST DESCRIBES THE ACT OF BROWSING ON THE INTERNET

Exploration of a body of information, based on the organization of the collections or
scanning lists, rather than by direct searching.
Reading documents on the Internet.

With the above two definition one can summarize all the activities done on the internet, including
chatting and downloading as internet and/or web browsing.

3. WEBSITE

A website can be defined as a collection of HTML and subordinate documents on the World Wide Web that are typically accessible from the same URL and residing on the same server, and form a coherent, usually
interlinked whole.

4. WEB 2.0

Web 2.0 is a perceived transition of the Web from a collection of Web sites to a
full-fledged computing platform serving Web applications.

5. WEB SERVER

A web server is a computer that provides client stations with access to files and printers as shared resources to a computer network.

WEB BROWSERS

WEB BROWSERS CAN BE DEFINED IN THE FOLLOWING FIVE WAYS:

A web browser is a piece of computer software that you use to search for information on the Internet,
especially on the World Wide Web.
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web.
A Browsing software that provides you with the means to view a web page. Without browser software, you would not be able to surf the Internet.
A web browser is an application program which interprets HTML and presents the final Web page; used to
surf the World Wide Web.
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information
resources on the World Wide Web.

An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) and may be a web page, image, video,
or other piece of content.

Hyperlinks present in resources enable users to easily navigate their browsers to related resources, although browsers are primarily intended to access the World Wide Web, they can also be used to access information provided by Web servers in private networks or files in file systems.

Some browsers can be also used to save information resources to file systems.

HISTORY OF WEB BROWSERS

The history of the web browser dates back in to the late 1980s, when a variety of technologies laid the foundation for the first web browser, WorldWideWeb, by Tim Berners-Lee in 1991.

That browser brought together a variety of existing and new software and hardware technologies, the introduction of the NCSA Mosaic web browser in 1993 – one of the first graphical web browsers – led to an
explosion in web use.

Marc Andreessen, the leader of the Mosaic team at NCSA, soon started his own company, named Netscape, and released the Mosaic-influenced Netscape Navigator in 1994, which quickly became the world’s
most popular browser, accounting for 90% of all web use at its peak.

Microsoft responded with its browser Internet Explorer in 1995 (also heavily influenced
by Mosaic), initiating the industry’s first browser war.

By bundling Internet Explorer with Windows, Microsoft was able to leverage its dominance in the operating
system market to take over the web browser market; Internet Explorer usage share peaked at over 95% by 2002.

Internet Explorer has 65% browser usage share as of October 2009 according to Net Applications.

Opera debuted in 1996; although it has never achieved widespread use, having 2% browser usage share as of October 2009, it has a substantial share of the fast-growing mobile phone web browser market, being preinstalled on over 40 million phones.

It is also available on several other embedded systems, including Nintendo’s Wii video game console. In 1998, Netscape launched what was to become the Mozilla Foundation in an attempt to produce a competitive browser using the open source software model.

That browser would eventually evolve into Firefox, which developed a respectable following while still in the beta stage of development; shortly after the release of Firefox 1.0 in late 2004, Firefox (all versions) accounted for 7.4% of browser use.

As of October 2009, Firefox has a 24% usage share. Apple’s Safari had its first beta release in January 2003; as of October 2009, it has a dominant share of Apple-based web browsing, accounting for just over 4% of the
entire browser market.

Its rendering engine, called WebKit, is also running in the standard browsers of several mobile phone platforms, including the iPhone OS, Google Android, Nokia S60 and Palm WebOS.

The most recent major entrant to the browser market is Google’s WebKit-based Chrome, first released in September 2008. As of October 2009, it has a 4% usage share………………..

TYPES OF WEB BROWSERS

There are various types of web browsers built based on the “operating system” used with it. But our focus will be on most popular “Microsoft® Windows®” based web browsers

Mozilla firefox
Google chrome
Internet Explorer
Safari
Opera
Flock
Mozilla seamonkey
Flashpeak Slimbrowser

These are the most-populous web browsers amongst million others. Full and more detailed article on web browsers and other web applications with their download link can be found on our website here.

WEB APPLICATIONS

Apart from web browsers there are various web applications built for peculiar reasons, some for chatting, free calls, downloading, email clients, email marketing, SEO (search engine optimization) tools and many more functions.

The most populous amongst them will be listed here below with little highlight on what it is used for, full details of each of them can be found on website here.

Pidgin: all in one PC messenger and chatting application.
Skype: PC free call and messaging application
Orbit Downloader: A reliable pc download manager
Gtalk: An instant messenger from Google™
Yahoo Messenger: an instant messenger from yahoo
Aim messenger: an instant messaging app from Aol
Windows messenger: an instant messaging app from Microsoft Inc.
Mozilla Thunderbird: A PC email client that works with all email server and services.
Microsoft Outlook/Outlook express: A reliable email client from Microsoft Inc.

These are the few that can be listed for now check out here or here for more. For each of this
application to work perfectly, you need to have a working connection to the internet and must be configured properly following the developer’s instruction.

common acronyms/abbreviation related to/with internet browsing

http => Hyper-text transfer protocol
html => Hyper-text markup language
https => Hyper-text transmission protocol, secure
ftp => file transfer protocol
url => universal resource locator
ip => internet protocol
tcp => transmission control protocol
dns => domain name service/domain name system
ARPAnet => Advance Research Project Agency Network
ssl => Secure sockets layer/Synthesizer specification Language

GENERAL KEYBOARD SHORTCUT FOR ALL WEB BROWSERS (tested with mozilla firefox 3.6)

f6/alt+d => highlights/activates the address bar
f11 => activates full screen
f3 => find
f10 => activates the menu bar
windows logo+m => minimizes all open window or programs
alt+f4 => closes the browser
f7 => turns keyboard browsing on (firefox only)
ctrl+n => opens a new page
ctrl+t => opens a new tab
ctrl+r => reloads a page
ctrl+w => closes the current page/tab
ctrl+o => opens a file
ctrl+s => opens the “save as” prompt
ctrl+u => opens the page source
ctrl+a => selects all
ctrl+c => copy
ctrl+v => past
ctrl+x => cut
ctrl+z => undo
ctrl+y => redo
ctrl+p => print
ctrl+b => opens the bookmark manager
ctrl plus + => zoom out
ctrl plus – => zoom in
ctrl+d => bookmark a page
alt+any highlighted alphabet => activates the corresponding action.

APPLICATION

Locate the browser (ie: mozilla firefox, internet explorer, google chrome and etc.) on the active desktop icons or from the start menu. else, hold => windows logo+r =>type firefox, chrome or iexplore (depending on the browser of choice).

=> hit enter to lunch mozilla firefox, internet explorer or google chrome respectively.

When the browser is fully opened, press f6/alt+d to activate the address bar, then type any address (website) of your choice and hit enter.

This is usually when you have an address (website) in mind or know the site you want to visit. Most at times, the sites containing the information you are looking for may not be known to you.

In such cases you are provided with perfect tools that does the work for you ie. in form of search engines.

SEARCH ENGINES

Search engines overtime stands to be a time-saving and effortless tool(s) for every
internet user; it differs among various users.

Most of them are mostly used by affiliate marketers and the likes eg. www.cbengine.com (click bank search engine) , www.amazon.com and etc.

Our focus will be on the ever-reliable top five most used ones by all classes of persons.

Information can be retrieved using any of these search engines. just => locate the search bar => type in the key words of the information you are looking for => hit enter to begin search.

CREATING AN EMAIL ADDRESS

An email address can be created using either Google™, aol, yahoo, Microsoft Inc server and/or any other site(s). the type of email one should have depends on what the email is to be used for.

For most individuals free email address is recommended while companies, churches, banks and organizations should consider getting a paid email address.

To create a free email address => go to www.gmail.com => click on create an account/sign up => fill the form with the required information => verify your account.

N/b use country code when providing your mobile number eg. +23470xxxxxxxx. For commercial or paid email address you will need a web designer to host one for you.

USING YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS

For the first use, you need to customize your email address to suit your taste, for gmail users => go to www.gmail.com => put your username and password => click on sign in.

When logged in, you can now navigate to various options, read mail by clicking on inbox, spam, send
mail by clicking on compose (here you can attach a document/file by clicking on attach file) and many other features.

To get help on any of the options click on help and follow the on screen prompt.

PARTICIPATING IN FORUM(S)

For every internet user, leisure time is used participating in forum(s) and learning new things. forums
to join or participate in, depends on ones field or area of interest, few among many of the forum is listed here below:

www.nairaland.com
www.nigeriabestforum.com
www.win7vista.com
www.warriorforum.com
www.gurusforum.com

Participating in forum requires great wisdom and discipline to avoid being banned and/or scammed by internet fraudsters.

DOWNLOADING FILES FROM THE INTERNET

The overall safety of your pc while browsing may depend on the files/attachment you
download while browsing.

it is best to download with discretion and wisdom to ensure your security online. Downloading also is a data intensive action that requires higher bandwidth than normal internet browsing.

Sites For Mobile Downloads:

www.getjar.com

www.crazy4mobilez.com

www.sharemobile.ro

Sites For Pc Downloads:

www.rapidshare.com

Download manager(s) can be used to speed up download from the internet.

must-have tools

Read/Write in All Languages: This is an easy to use tool provided by Google™ Inc. You can access this tool by => going to http://www.translate.google.com
=> or search for Google translator => click on the first search result => follow the on screen instruction.
Dictionary: This is an online English dictionary provided for ease of use, to access this dictionary (a) =>
go to www.dictionary.google.com => type a word/phrase => wait for result/definition.