What is Internet Explorer

Your first time that you browse the web, you may have some difficulty. Efficiently browsing the Web is just like any other complex task in life, it takes practice to be good at it. Internet Explorer has some built-in features which will help to make it easier for you to browse the web. The fastest way to get to a place that you can search from, is to click on the "Search" button on the Internet Explorer main toolbar. This button will take you to a document within Microsoft's home site. On this document you will find a choice of categories to look through and a list Search Engines to use. A Search Engine is a application that will attempt to find any documents that contain the subject or phrase that you enter into the search parameters. You can also browse through the categories of Web sites that the search engines have already organized for you.

Another important thing to remember when you first begin browsing the web is that if you know the Web address of a site, you don't need use a search engine to find the page you wish to visit. Go up to the "Address Bar" near the top of the page, and click on it. Now you can type in the Web address of the site you want, and then press enter. Internet Explorer will go to this site directly from whatever document you were currently viewing. This is much faster than going to a search engine and trying to locate the site you want in their directories, or searching for it with a query. (Address Bar shown below)

Internet Explorer browser Icons and Functions

  Will re-display the previous page that you visited.

  Will display the next page (assuming that you have first moved back a page).

  Will halt the downloading of information. This button is useful when you visit a slow loading site and you wish to cancel the loading of that page.

  The refresh icon reloads the information from the Web site that you are visiting.

  The home icon will take you to your default starting page.  This page can be set up to be any page on any Web site.  If your organization has it's own Web site then you may wish the Home Page to be the starting page of your own Web site.

  The search icon allows you to search the Internet for sites containing information that is of interest to you. When you click on this icon you will have access to a number of Internet Search programs, such as Lycos and Excite. When you enter a word or phrase into these programs they will return a list of documents that match your search criteria.

  The favorites list is basically a series of bookmarks that allows you to store pointers to your favorite Web sites, so that you can easily re-visit the Web site of interest.

  Allows you to access recently visited web sites.

  Allows you access to your email and newsgroup programs.

  The Print icon allows you to print a Web page that is displayed on your screen.

Allows you to preview the web page as it would appear in printed form.

TIP: If the Web page displayed on your screen is formatted using frames (i.e. it is divided into sections, often separated by scroll bars) then you should click on the section of the screen that you wish to print!

  Allows you to access Internet Discussion Groups

Connecting to the Internet

Internet Explorer help