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Web Browser Tutorial for Students


 

A free online Web browser tutorial with discussion about Web browsers, types of browsers, Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox, Mosaic, Opera, Netscape (now AOL Navigator), Lynx, and the Amaya editor/browser of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C.org)...


 

Overview and Editing With Browsers

A Web browser is special software for viewing Web pages and documents on the Internet, or on a network intranet. The two browsers with the current largest Web use are Microsoft Internet Explorer and Firefox from www.mozilla.org. Each of these browsers is available as a free download from the Internet. Safari for Mac OS X users is popular.

Note to Web Authors

It is possible to use Internet Explorer to edit Web pages on your local computer for uploading to a Web server. It is a good idea for a Web author to view their own Web pages using two or three different browsers to see if the pages render the same way. You may discover differences between one browser and another in the way the Web page is displayed.
NOTE: If you cannot edit a Web page using your browser then read HTML Editors which discusses HTML editors and text editors. First, I would try to download the free versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Mozilla's Firefox, and

Downloading Files

Occasionally when you download files from the Internet you will need a utility that can unzip compressed files; however, at other times, the downloaded files will uncompress by double-clicking on the file icon. If a decompression utility is needed, PC users can install WinZip. Computer vendors usually install a Web browser as part of the software that is on the computer when it is sold at a retail outlet. If you build your own computer you may have to download and install a Web browser yourself since it is not usually part of the operating system (yet). Several browsers are available for you to download. Some are listed below, with hypertext links to related sites.

The purpose of this page is to give the reader a starting point for investigating browsers and browser add-ons and plug-ins. An add-on is something that gives a browser additional capabilities other than what was originated programmed for the browser to do, such as playing a musical MIDI file, or viewing video files on the Web.

Search Engines, Browsers, Plug-Ins, and Add-Ons

You will be using search engines  as you investigate additonal information about browsers, browser plug-ins and browser add-ons. The top three search engines are Google, Yahoo.com and MSN. The download sites:  Download.Com and Tucows.Com are good starting points for looking for freeware and shareware as well as commercial software. You may search by category at Download.Com or just surf the index. At tucows.com first select your computer platform before performing your search. Tabs are Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Mobile Phone, Articles.

New Technologies

The technologies for speech-enabled browsers are under development and some are available now. It will just be a matter of time until speech-enabled browsers become a reality. I have included a small section near the bottom of this page for speech-enabled browsers.

New Version Release of Internet Explorer

Users of Windows XP, Service Pack 2 can now download the Beta 2 version of Internet Explorer 7.

 

 

 

Firefox

Firefox is now available for download from mozilla.org. This is a newer, faster browser, than Internet Explorer 6.0 and is the preferred browser of many people working in "Tech Support" for Internet Service providers. Many extensions are available for Firefox at mozilla.org. Firefox is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux i686 systems and is currently available in 27 languages. Read more about it at http://www.mozilla.com/. When I downloaded Firefox and installed it on a Windows 98 machine, then on a Windows XP Professional computer, Firefox 1.5.x did not display table bordercolor nor the color of horizontal rules. Table border width was distorted as was the width of the horizontal rules in the <HR> tags. This occurred with Firefox versions 1.0 and 1.5.x I was not able to edit a local Web page from within the browser. To edit from a browser, I had to open Internet Explorer 6.0 on the Windows 98 machine.
Firefox is very good at having multiple instances open at the same time for searching, researching. Internet Explorer is very good for editing Web pages on your local machine or thumb drive and saving the code. Just double click on a local HTML page using your Windows Explorer page view pane to open any HTML document. Then click on

Firefox version 1.5 and Thunderbird e-mail client are now available for downloading at the above mozilla.org Web site.


 

Safari

Safari is the default browser of the Mac OS X operating system by Apple Computer. Safari is fast, easy to use and was a real joy with its faster-loading Web pages and faster browsing. Internet Explorer is also available for the OS X operating system but in tests at home, Internet Explorer was slower-loading and I was unable to edit text on a local HTML page using Internet Explorer for the Mac OS X G4 system and the "View, Source". Hands down, Safari was faster on the Mac G4 OS X machine.

Mac OS X users can download Safari 1.2.


 

Microsoft Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer is the browser belonging to Microsoft Corporation. They distribute this browser (free-of-charge) as freeware over the Internet. It is also known as Microsoft Internet Explorer and is abbreviated "MSIE" or "IE". See Intro. to DHTML for technologies supported by the 4.x generation of Microsoft Internet Explorer. The SMIL-Boston draft specification for full multimedia presentation recently published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is also supported in Internet Explorer version 6. With add-Ons a user may now view MP4 streaming video files using this browser. MP3 is supported with Real Player and other audio add-ons.

Many users are unhappy with security problems associated with Internet Explorer. When using this browser please be sure to get the security patches and any available service packs associated with Internet Explorer... and keep visiting Microsoft to find out when new security patches become available, or sign up for the e-mail notification of security patches and service packs as they become available for Microsoft's various software products.


June 2003 Cumulative Patch for Internet Explorer (818529)
 
Security Bulletins
 
Internet Explorer Home
 
Microsoft Internet Explorer, Version 5
Download Site
 
Microsoft Security Bulletin Search
 
ViewLink Overview
ViewLink was a new feature of Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5.5 -- a feature of element behaviors that enables you to write fully encapsulated Dynamic HTML (DHTML) behaviors and import them as robust custom elements in a Web page. Viewlinked document content, otherwise known as the document fragment, renders and behaves as regular HTML content in the main Web page. Either binary DHTML behaviors or scripted HTML Component (HTC) can be used to implement an element behavior with a viewlink, but this overview focuses primarily on the use of viewlink in scripted HTC files.
 
Using IFRAME elements in MSIE 5.5
An article for Web developers
 
Hot Fix and Security Bulletin Service
RE: MSIE 5.0
 

Software Storage: When you download any zipped file from Microsoft, and before you click on the file icon to decompress or unzip the file, SAVE IT as a copy, in a different location such as on a CD-R disk, or on a Zip drive disk or other external storage. The reason you want a compressed copy of the file is so that the program can be restored in the event of a hard-drive catastrophe. Microsoft does not make back versions of browsers available for download from their Web site.

Prior Versions: Many programmers and developers need back-version availability (such as for using Visual Studio 6.0). I prefer the MSIE browser version 5.2.x on my personal computer since it is compatible with the .dll files of Visual Studio 6.0. MSIE v. 5.2 shipped with Visual Studio 6.0. Always keep backup files of software (including an extra copy of any browser download) in a secure place that is cool and dry. Consider having two backup copies of important software so that one copy can be stored in a separate building, a bank safety deposit box, or at home or work.


 

 

AOL Navigator

Netscape Navigator is a browser which was created by Mark Andreesen and his team for Netscape Communications Corporation which Mr. Andreesen co-founded. Navigator was distributed over the Web as freeware, and free downloads are still available to AOL users. Netscape Navigator was acquired by AOL.COM. Their newer versions still had some proprietary features and did not support all of the features of CSS-P, CSS, and DHTML. Since then it has lost a lot of previous users of the older versions who have moved on to newer browsers, such as Firefox 1.0 available at http://www.mozilla.org/
Additional Information:
Netscape Help  (versions 4,6,7,internat.)
 
Netscape for OS/2 Warp
Plug-ins, hints and tips
 
Product Information
Netscape Communicator . Also includes archived previous versions.
 

 

 

Opera

Opera Software is the Norwegian developer of the Opera Browser. This browser had a US "registration fee" of $35.00> Now you can try Opera (free) for several operating systems, including for Windows, Mac, Linux, OS/2, symbian OS. This software takes up very little space on the hard drive in comparison to Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer. Read about the features of this browser and additional information about Opera in the links below.
Additional Information about Opera Browser

 

 

NCSA Mosaic

NCSA Mosaic is a client browser that was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champain. It was one of the earliest graphical user interface (GUI) browsers. The NCSA Mosaic for X developers were Eric Bina and Marc Andreessen. The NCSA Mosaic Web sites at ncsa.uiuc.edu are no longer available... not one of the previous links nor download sites is working.
[NCSA Mosaic sites no longer available... archive no longer available]

 

 

Mozilla

Mozilla.Org
 
Mozilla at a Glance
 
Mozilla Tutorial
Mozilla is open source code so this tutorial for programmers is about how to use and configure the browser.

 

AMAYA, JIGSAW and OTHERS

What is Amaya?
The Amaya editor/browser is a browser/authoring tool available for downloading from W3C.org. It is used to demonstrate and test many of the new developments in Web protocols and data formats. Given the very fast moving nature of Web technology, Amaya has a central role to play. It is versatile and extensible and is available for the following operating systems: Windows:NT/2000/XP (formerly also 95,98); Mac OS X; Linux: Mandrake, Redhat, SUSE; and Debian.
 
Amaya is a free browser available for downloading from the Amaya site at W3C.
 
Lynx Sources and Resources A text- and Lynx-based DOS web browser
 
Bobcat, Lynx-Based DOS Web Browser (scroll down the page to this section.
 
Jigsaw is the counterpart of Amaya, but for the server side. It is open source.
Jigsaw Known Bugs


 

 

Speech-Enabled Browsers

The technologies for speech-enabled browsers are under development and some are available now. It will be just a matter of time until speech-enabled browsers become available to end-users. The links in this section are for further study.
W3C Voice Browser Activity
Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
VoiceXML for speech-activated information retrieval
XML Gives voice to new speech apps

A Markup Language for Talking Browsers?
SALTy New Browser Enables Speech Apps

 

 

Web Authoring: Accessibility and Browser Compatibility

In additon to the Web authoring links below, be sure to read about the technologies of XHTML (you can make Web pages for hand-held devices) and XML.

 

 

Internet Explorer 7, Beta 2 version

The version number I am using is actually Version: 7.0.5296.0 with a Cipher Strength: 128-bit; Update Versions: Beta 2. New to IE7 is tabbed navigation, and new look on the menu bar. The menu options have changed. For instance, in order to View, Source you have to click on the new Pages icon for a drop-down list which includes a link for View Source.
Be sure to read the RELEASE NOTES at Microsoft before downloading the Beta Preview. You will not be able to install Internet Explorer 7 over itself so to install another version you have to uninstall IE 7 before reinstalling Internet Explorer 7. If you should encounter any messages during installation about any installation ERROR you should reboot your system right away to undo any changes made during that setup attempt. After rebooting you may try installing again.
February 06, 2006: You cannot log on to the TurboTax online Web site (http://www.turbotax.com/tax_productions/online_products.html) from a system running Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview. This is a known issue with the User Agent String in IE 7 Beta 2 Preview. The problem will be fixed or you will be able to download a fix when one becomes available.
HTML Authors have reported previously that some CSS problems existed when displaying Web pages in Internet Explorer 7 Beta versions... I have not had a CSS display problem on my Web site since downloading the Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 version 7.0.5296.0 product.
    One problem I have experienced with Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview is that when two instances of the browser are open, one for Web editing and the second browser is being used to search Google, the Google screen search freezes up without rendering search results. I am using Windows XP Professional and have to hit the Ctrl-Alt-Delete sequence to close the browser used for the Google search and get a pop-up screen imploring me to "Send Report" which I have responsed to.
    A work-around for the above problem was quickly found by using only one open instance of the Internet Explorer program for the editing and to use Firefox for the Google Searches. Firefox can have several instances open (several windows of the browser) and handles the task just fine.
   Another inconvenience occurs every time I Refresh a page during HTML Source Code editing. I have to deal with closing the Information Pop-Up Window every single time that I refresh an edited Web page. Since a Web page is refreshed literally dozens and dozens of times during an editing session, this amounts to quite a bit of lost time from closing that Information Pop-up Window not to mention the problem is contributing to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome from all the "extra" mouse moves. Any solution to this problem from a reader would be appreciated. Contact Webmaster and thank you in advance.(Reported by Cheryl Gribble, Webmaster, Hitmill.com on March 1, 2006)

 


 

 

 
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Updated 18 April 2006
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