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Internet
New to the net, or a savvy vet? Here you'll find the tools you need to take advantage of what the web
has to offer. To begin with, let's get to the Beginner's Guides.
It's always difficult trying to figure something out for the first time. There are a couple of very good
beginner's guides to get you started on the web. The first is the
PBS Beginner's Guide to Understanding
and Using the Internet. You should also spend some time going through the resources of About.com's
Internet for Beginners. The University at Albany
Libraries also has a very good
Internet Tutorial. For more beginner's guides, surf over to the
Yahoo! Directory of Internet Beginner's Guides.
Browsers are the software you are using to view this information. Most just use the same browser that
came with their computer. Hopefully, at least, they've been keeping it up to date with updates to fix
security flaws and incorporate new technologies to make surfing the web more interesting.
There are several very good browsers available, and some would argue they are better than Microsoft's version.
Internet Explorer (IE) is by far the
most used browser on the net. Other
options include Netscape,
Mozilla, Opera, and Apple's new
Safari. IE is limited to Windows and Mac, and Safari is
strictly a Mac browser (and still in beta). Netscape, Mozilla, and Opera come in Windows, Mac, and Linux
versions.
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Mozilla and Netscape are based on the Gecko rendering engine that has been developed as open-source software.
That means that no one company owns the software and anyone who would like, can alter the source code.
Opera has long been called the world's fastest browser. It comes in a free version that has banner
ads in the right hand corner. Also, other than IE, they all offer skinning capability. That means
you can change the way the browser looks.
How do you find what you need on the net? It's like having 500 channels on your satellite system with
junk playing on 475 channels. You need a guide to find what you're looking for.
Some prefer to simply enter what they're looking for in a search box and hit enter to find it, like
Google. Others prefer to drill down and search via categories like
Yahoo! or the Open Directory Project.
Or (hint, hint) you can just bookmark our Search page and have them all in one place.
There are literally hundreds of search engines. Usually, people find the one they find most accurate and
stick with it. The current leader in that regard would be Google. However, if you want to do a little
research, check out the SearchEngine Report to find a search engine.
If you can't make up your mind, try using
this index from the University at Albany Libraries that categorizes
search engines based on what they're useful for (multimedia, domains, subjects, etc.).
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