Part 1: Browsers and search engines
A browser is a program that allows you to access the internet. A search engine is a program that allows you to search the internet.
Examples of browsers: Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge
Examples of search engines: Google, DuckDuckGo, Bing
There isn’t a “best” option. When you’re deciding what to use it’s generally a trade-off between convenience, privacy, features, and effectiveness. Here’s a video to help make a bit more sense of everything:
Browsers generally share the same set of core functions – a search/address bar, tabs, forward/back/refresh buttons, bookmarks, and settings.
The search bar at the top can function as a place to type in a general search (ex. “weather”) or a specific search for a webpage address or URL (www.weather.com). Searching “weather” will generate a list of general results. Typing in “www.weather.com” will take you to a specific webpage.
Tabs are great for organizing your reading. They make switching between different tasks and webpages easy.
The back button can be used to move back to the page last viewed. The forward button will move forward a page (provided you’ve clicked the back button). The refresh button will reload a webpage – it’s usually the easiest way to fix a webpage that doesn’t load correctly.
Bookmarks exist to conveniently organize frequently accessed webpages or anything being saved for later.
The settings allow you to make changes to the way that your browser looks and works like larger font sizes or adjusting the zoom.
In our next edition of Tech Tuesday we’ll be talking about basic searching strategies and how to interpret the results of a search.