Tip of the Week: Tricks for Better Internet Browsing

If you use the Internet every single day, you’ll start to realize that you can use it more effectively for achieving your goals. In cases like this, it’s important to look at ways you can improve your overall use of the Internet, as it’s the key way you access important information, applications, and contacts. Here are some day-to-day tips that you can use to help improve your mastery of the Internet.

Take Complete Advantage of Tabbed Browsing
Let’s say that you find a particularly interesting article that you don’t want to navigate away from. Then, however, you find one that catches your interest, and you want to save it for later. You can simply right-click the link and open it in a new tab. If you want to take your tab browsing to the next level, try clicking on it while holding down the Ctrl key. The exact same thing will happen, but without you having to right-click the link.

Leave Out the Beginning of the URL
If you can’t remember the beginning of a URL, don’t sweat it. As long as it’s HTTP or HTTPS, you probably don’t need to enter it to find the right site. The URL will be identified by the web browser automatically. However, you will want to pay attention to the URL if you’re navigating to an online shop or a site where sensitive information is exchanged. You never want to enter information into a site that isn’t using encryption.

Navigate Through Forms Quickly
You can navigate through forms on web pages quickly and easily by hitting the Tab key. This will move you through field-by-field, which makes them much easier to fill out than clicking on every single field as you go through it. If you want to go back to a previous field, you can use the keyboard shortcut Shift + Tab.

Use Browser Shortcuts
Some of the same keyboard shortcuts you would use in word processors will also work in a web browser, like copy, cut, and paste. There are others, however, that are specific to a web browser, including the following:

• Use F5 or Ctrl+R to refresh the web page.
• Use Ctrl+F to open the Find function, which will let you search a web page for specific text.
• Use Ctrl+B to open the Bookmarks function.
• Press Ctrl and the plus or minus keys to make the text bigger or smaller.

What are some of your favorite web browsing tips and tricks? Be sure to let us know in the comments.