We use Mozilla Firefox
This web browser is developed by the Open-Source community and available for free (Windows, Linux, MacOS). You will find it in almost every Internet-café.
The GUI¶
A web browser gives you the possibility to navigate websites, by clicking links, watching media and many more.
Title Bar title of the web page
Menu Bar access to the commands
Standard Buttons Toolbar provides quick access to the commands: go ‘Back’ (long way: click the down arrow), ‘Forward’ (long way: click the down arrow), go ‘Home’ (Startseite), Favorites/Bookmarks
Stop Button (or “Escape” key) to stop browser loading a website
Reload Button to reload a webpage
Links Toolbar quick online access to webpages
Address Bar
enter the address of web sites you want to visit
arrow down on the right side: see already entered adresses
Status Bar tell about the connection, security (e.g. lock) to the right
Scroll Bars
Help: F1 – works with most Software in some Operating Systems
How it works¶
Web Addresses – what does a URL look like?
Prefix: www.
http: Hypertext Transfer Protocol
https: Hypertext Transfer Protocol secure
www.: World Wide Web
blabla: domain
.de: Germany
.fr: France
.uk: country code, where the site is registered in
| US Abbreviations: many companies registered there, since it was cheaper | ||
| suffix | Abbreviation stands for.. | |
| com | Commercial (US) | |
| org | Non profit organisation (US) | |
| edu | Academic institution (US) | |
| GB: Organisation Type | |||
| co | Company | Commercial, profit making | |
| org | Non-profit organisation | Charities, Unions, Trusts | |
| ac | Academic institutions | Universities, Colleges and Schools | |
| gov | Government | Government, Councils, Parliament Sites, Heritage Sites | |
To access a website
click into the Address Bar
write the web address “www…..”
press “Enter” or on “Go” the button next to the address bar
watch the progress: The symbol at the top right hand corner is busy until page is loaded. The Status Bar is indicating the progress of loading.
you have a pretty good chance just to guess the websites name by simply typing the name in and press “Enter”. Browsers are able to add the “http://www” at the start and a ”.com”
Auto Completition
when you start to type in an URL in the “Address Bar” a drop down menue might propose you an address which was accessed before. It is possible to turn of this feature. It probably won’t work in internet cafes due to privacy.
Error Messages:
if website is no longer available (try archive.org) or too many requests
Links can be
- text – usually underlined or changes the color if you move over the mouse pointer
- a picture
- a button – be careful, esp. if you are giving away personal data.
- an animated image
To which website will the Link lead?
Move your mouse pointer over the link. It turns into a pointing hand shape. Now look down to the Status Bar: It shows you the address of the link. Click on the link to go there.
websites with frames scroll bar
Tips for using Firefox
- Tabs: Opening several pages at one time makes surfing the internet more effective, since you reduce the time waiting on a webpage to load. Use the right mouse click. It opens the context menue: one option is “Open Link in new Tab” Explore other options of the context menue, e.g. saving image.
- Bookmarks: if you bookmark a page (Menue Bar > Bookmark > Bookmark this Page) the web adress you’re looking at is saved either in a list or in a certain folder under “Bookmark“ or in the bookmarks toolbar folder in the Links Toolbar.
- Find on this site: Ctrl/Strg+F opens a search box next to the Status Bar. Type in the word you are looking for. Press “Enter”. Word will be highlighted.
- Add-Ons: For some „special actions“, e.g. watching videos on youtube.com, it is necessary to install some extensions. In this case a flash-player, because the video format on youtube.com is flash (*.flv). Normally it is shown in the window, that there are some extensions missing to show the whole page. You can download the extensions by clicking on the appearing links or by searching them trough „Extras…Add-ons….“. Now you’re on a site where you can search for the extension you’re looking for.
