BlueMoon Solutions
"for all your home and business computer needs" Web Browsers – Part 2
Web Browsers – Part 2
Last month we looked at the various web browsers you can use to view Internet pages and we found that there were four main alternatives. We also looked at the fact that it’s important to ensure that your computer has the latest updates installed and how you go about doing that. If you missed last month’s article you can find a copy of it on our website at www.bluemoonsolutions.es/articles This month we continue our look at web browsers and focus on Microsoft’s latest version – Internet Explorer 9.
The new Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) has a new, and some might say confusing layout. Firstly Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, have decided to move the list of favourites. Favourites (or bookmarks as called in Firefox) are links to web sites that you use often; they are a quick way to get to your preferred websites by simply clicking one button rather than typing in a whole website address – those of you that are used to seeing your favourites on the left hand side of the screen in Internet Explorer under a little yellow star will have a shock when you first upgrade to the new version, as Microsoft have decided to move the favourites location to the other side of the screen. They are now on the right, at the top and you now have to click the little star icon, but this time it is white and glows yellow when you move your mouse over it.
Another thing that may confuse those of you that are used to seeing a menu bar (which is not enabled by default in the previous version but something that many people changed) is that the menu bar (file, edit etc.) has now been re-hidden. To get access to the settings (in order to set your home page amongst other things) within IE9 you have to either click on the icon of a ‘cog’ in the top right hand corner of the screen, next to the new favorites icon, or you have to press the ALT key (the one to the left of the space bar). By pressing the ALT key you will get the full menu bar appear at the top of the screen.
If you are using Windows 7, one of the new features of IE9 that is quite neat is the ability to “pin” websites to the taskbar (the bar that runs along the bottom of the screen and holds things like the start button, your clock, the programs that are running at the moment). In order to do this you must click, hold and drag the “tab” that is open in IE9 down to the task bar and drop it where you want to “pin” it. The website’s icon will then remain in the task bar and will be easy to access whenever you need it.
Another great upgrade is the ability to search directly in the address bar. What I mean by this is that you now no longer have to go to the web page of someone like google.co.uk to search for other web pages, all you have to do is place your cursor in the address bar (the bar at the top of the screen that has the website address in – i.e. http://www.msn.com) and once you have clicked here simply type the search that you want to make (i.e. used car sales costa blanca) and IE9 will automatically load up your preferred search engine (www.google.co.uk in my case) and do the search for you.
Another thing that people are usually not aware of, is that most browsers are able to open up more than one page at a time – this is particularly useful when you are searching for something and want to keep your current page open but search for a different website in a new window (screen). To do this look towards the top of IE9 and you will see that, the current web page title is in a rectangular box with an ‘X’ next to it. To the right of the ‘X’ is a small grey box, when you move your mouse over that box the words “New Tab” appear. Just click this box to create a new tab. You will then have two tabs at the top of the screen, your original tab and your new tab. You can also make another new tab by pressing the key combination “CTRL and T” and you can have as many tabs open as you can cope with!
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