Browsing the Web

Welcome to Mozilla! One of the most popular ways people use Mozilla is to browse the Web. Navigator, the Mozilla component that lets you visit web pages, offers many ways to visit web pages and search the Web.

This section introduces you to Navigator, and how you can use it to browse, search, and save web pages.

In this section:

Navigating Web Pages

Searching the Web

Copying, Saving, and Printing Pages

Using Languages and International Content

Improving Speed and Efficiency

Proxies

Viewing Page Info

 


Navigating Web Pages

 

In this section:

Viewing Your Home Page

Moving to Another Page

Clicking a Link

Retracing Your Steps

Stopping and Reloading

Visiting Bookmarked Pages

Using Tabbed Browsing

Using Sidebar

 

Viewing Your Home Page

When you start Mozilla, you see Navigator, your browser. A "What's New" page appears automatically in the browser window when you first launch Mozilla.

After the first launch, you will normally see your home page when you launch Mozilla. Unless you choose a home page yourself, your home page is chosen by your network or Internet service provider, or you see Mozilla's home page.

To choose your own home page, see Specifying How Mozilla Starts Up.

Tips:

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Moving to Another Page

You move to a new page by typing its URL—its location (address) on the Web. URLs normally begin with "http://," followed by one or more names that identify the address. For instance, "http:/mozilla.org".

  1. Click the Location Bar to select the URL that is already there.
  2. Type the URL of the page you want to visit. The URL you type replaces any text already in the Location Bar.
  3. Press Enter.

Using the lock icon near the lower-right corner of the window, you can check a web page's security status at any time. For details, see Checking Security for a Web Page.

Tip: To quickly select the URL in the Location Bar, press Ctrl+L (Cmd+L> on Mac OS).

 

Location Bar
Location Bar

 

Don't know a URL? You can type part of a URL, such as "cnn" (for www.cnn.com); or you can type a general word, such as "gifts" or "flowers." Navigator guesses what page you want to view, or displays a page with a choice of links related to the word you typed.

If you are new to the Internet, see the New to the Net Tutorial.

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Clicking a Link

Most web pages contain links you can click to move to other pages.

  1. Move the pointer until it changes to a pointing finger. This happens whenever the pointer is over a link. Most links are underlined text, but buttons and images can also be links.
  2. Click the link once. While the network locates the page that the link points to, status messages appear at the bottom of the window.

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Retracing Your Steps

There are several ways to re-visit pages:

 

Navigation Buttons
    Back   Forward

 

 

Location Bar
Location Bar

 

Tip: The Sidebar History tab also allows you to choose from pages you've visited during the past several sessions. For information, see Adding Sidebar Tabs.

 

About History Lists

The history list contains links to recently visited pages. The Location Bar list contains links to pages you've typed into the Location Bar and then visited.

To access the history list from Navigator, open the Go menu and choose History. To access the Location Bar list, click the arrow at the right end of the Location Bar.

Tip: To quickly open the history list, press Ctrl+H (Cmd+Shift+H on Mac OS).

If you don't want the Location Bar or history list to display the pages you've been visiting, you can clear the history list and Location Bar history entirely or selectively.

To delete all pages from the Location Bar or history list, begin from the Navigator window:

  1. Open the Edit menu (Mozilla menu on Mac OS X) and choose Preferences.
  2. Under the Navigator category, click History. (If no subcategories are visible, double-click Navigator to expand the list.)
  3. Click Clear History and Clear Location Bar to remove all previously visited web pages from the lists.
  4. If you wish to set a limit on how many pages remain in the history list, click the field next to "Number of pages in session history" and type a number of pages.

To selectively delete pages from the history list, do any of the following:

Tip: To sort the history list, click one of the categories (Title, Location, or Last Visited). Click the title again to reverse the order.

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Stopping and Reloading

If a page is taking too long to appear, or you change your mind and don't want to view it, click the Stop button.

To refresh the current page, or get the most up-to-date version, click the Reload button, or press Ctrl+R (Cmd+R on Mac OS).

Navigation Buttons
Reload
Stop

To refresh the current page and reset all changes made (if the page contains a form), hold down the Shift key and click the Reload button, or press Ctrl+Shift+R (Cmd+Shift+R on Mac OS).

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Visiting Bookmarked Pages

The addresses, or URLs, of web pages can be quite long and difficult to remember. Fortunately, it's not necessary to memorize URLs in order to browse the Web. Your browser has a list of bookmarks, which are pointers to interesting web pages.

To go to a bookmarked page, begin from the Navigator window:

  1. Open the Bookmarks menu. The menu contains bookmarks represented by a bookmark icon, and folders that contain more bookmarks.
  2. To visit a bookmarked page, choose a bookmark from the menu, or open a folder and choose a bookmark.

Tip: To retrace your steps, click the Back arrow.

You can save your own bookmarks to point to pages you frequently visit, or to other interesting places on the Web. See Creating New Bookmarks for more information.

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Using Tabbed Browsing

When you visit more then one web page at a time, you can use Tabbed Browsing to navigate the Web faster and easier.

Tabbed Browsing lets you open tabs, each displaying a web page, within a single Navigator window. You don't have to have several windows open to visit several different web pages. This frees up space on your desktop. You can open, close, and reload web pages conveniently in one place without having to switch to another window.

You can manage your navigation tabs easily and control when tabs are opened automatically. For more information about setting Tabbed Browsing preferences, see Navigator Preferences - Tabbed Browsing.

To learn more about using Tabbed Browsing, see Tabbed Browsing.

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Using Sidebar

In addition to navigating the Web with Navigator, you can let the Web come to you by using Sidebar.

Sidebar is a customizable frame in your browser where you can keep items that you need to use all the time—the latest news and weather, your address book or Buddy List, stock quotes, a calendar—and many other available options. Sidebar presents these items to you in tabs that it continually updates.

Mozilla comes with some Sidebar tabs already set up, but you can customize Sidebar by adding, removing, and rearranging tabs. For details, see My Sidebar.

To view an item in Sidebar, click its tab.

y Sidebar Handle

Sidebar Handle

If it is not already open, open Sidebar by clicking its handle. If the handle is missing, open the View menu in Navigator, choose Show/Hide, and then Sidebar from the submenu.

Tip: To quickly open or close the Sidebar, press F9

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Searching the Web

 

In this section:

Fast Searches

Advanced Search Mode

Setting Search Preferences

Using Internet Keywords

Searching Within a Page

Searching the Bookmarks or History List

 

Fast Searches

There are three ways to search quickly: from the Location Bar, from Sidebar, and from the Net Search page.

 

Searching from the Location Bar

Searching for web pages on a particular topic is as easy as typing a question, or just a word or two, into the browser's Location Bar, as shown below.

Location Bar with Search Term

For example, if you want to find information about baby dolls:

  1. Double-click in the Location Bar to select the current text.
  2. Type the word "baby doll". Your typing replaces the current text.
  3. Perform one of these steps:

After you perform a search, the results are saved in Sidebar's Search tab until you do a new search. You don't have to click the Back button to retrieve the search results.

Note: You can also use Internet Keywords to search from the Location Bar.

 

Searching from Sidebar

The Sidebar Search tab lets you quickly search and bookmark your search results. For example, if you want to find information about toy cars:

  1. If it is not already open, open Sidebar by clicking its handle. If the handle is missing, open the View menu in Navigator, choose Show/Hide, and then Sidebar from the submenu.
  2. Click the Search tab.
  3. Open the "using" drop-down list, and choose a search engine.
  4. Type "toy car" in the search field.
  5. Click Search. Search results for 'toy car' appear in both the browser window and in Sidebar. Click the links to visit web pages about toy cars.

Note: If the Sidebar Search tab contains a list of search engines from which to choose, then it is set to search in Advanced mode and you will have to choose one or more search engines before clicking Search. You can keep it that way or change to a basic setting in Preferences.

Tip: To display the next or previous page of search results quickly, click the Next and Previous buttons at the bottom of the Sidebar Search tab.

 

Searching from the Net Search page

The Net Search page lets you type in a Search term or phrase, or explore several categories (such as Arts & Entertainment, Business, and many more) that may interest you. To visit the Net Search page, perform one of these steps:

 

Searching on Selected Words in a Web Page

Mozilla allows you to search for words you select within a web page:

  1. Select (highlight) any words in a web page.
  2. Right-click and choose "Web Search for [your selected words]" for the menu. (To right-click on Mac OS, press Option and click the mouse button.)

Mozilla opens a new window and uses your default search engine to search for your selected words. To learn how to change the search engine used to search for your selected words, see Navigator Preferences - Internet Search.

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Advanced Search Mode

You can set the Sidebar Search tab to Advanced mode, which lets you narrow a search or choose one or more search engines.

  1. Open the Edit menu (Mozilla menu on Mac OS X) and choose Preferences.
  2. Under the Navigator category, click Internet Search. (If no subcategories are visible, double-click Navigator to expand the list.)
  3. Under Sidebar Search Tab Preferences, click Advanced, and then OK.
  4. If it is not already open, open Sidebar by clicking its handle. If the handle is missing, open the View menu in Navigator, choose Show/Hide, and then Sidebar from the submenu.
  5. Click the Search tab in Sidebar.
  6. Open the "within" drop-down list, and choose a category.
  7. Choose one or more search engines for the selected category (if available).
  8. In the search field, type the word for which you want to search.
  9. Click Search.

  My Side Bar Search

 

Customizing Search Categories

You can specify which search engines should be used for different categories of searches. For example, you can select one set of search engines to search for travel, and select another set of search engines to search for software.

  1. Set Sidebar Search to Advanced Search Mode. See Advanced Search mode for details.
  2. If it is not already open, open Sidebar by clicking its handle. If the handle is missing, open the View menu in Navigator, choose Show/Hide, and then Sidebar from the submenu.
  3. Click the Search tab in Sidebar.
  4. Open the "within" drop-down list, click "Edit Categories". You see the Edit Categories dialog box.
  5. From the Categories drop-down list, choose the category you want to customize.
    Or
    To create a new category, click New and type a name for the category in the dialog box. The drop-down list now displays the name of the selected category.
  6. Do one of the following:
  7. Click OK when you are finished customizing.

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Setting Search Preferences

You can choose a different search engine as the default. You can also specify how you want search results displayed in Sidebar.

  1. Open the Edit menu (Mozilla menu on Mac OS X) and choose Preferences.
  2. Under the Navigator category, click Internet Search. (If no subcategories are visible, double-click the Navigator to expand the list.)
  3. Under Default Search Engine, choose a search engine you want to use for web searching.
  4. Under Search Results, select "Open the Search tab in the Sidebar when search results are available" if you want the Sidebar search tab to open and show your search results.
  5. Under Sidebar Search Tab Preference, select Basic if you want to search using a single search engine, or select Advanced to be able to search using multiple search engines.

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Using Internet Keywords

Internet Keywords work with the Location Bar to help you quickly find specific types of information. There are several ways to use Internet Keywords:

Hint: The most commonly used Internet Keywords are listed in the pull-down list to the left of the Location Bar. Click the triangle and choose from the list. To see a longer list of keywords, choose List of Keywords.

Important: To use Internet Keywords, you must press Enter on your keyboard (Return on Mac OS) instead of clicking the Search button. Pressing Enter activates the Internet Keyword feature; clicking Search initiates a search.

To see the difference, try this:

  1. Type "apple imac" into the Location Bar and press Enter (Return). Apple Computer's iMac Web page appears.
  2. Now type "apple imac" into the Location Bar and click Search. You see a list of links related to Apple Computer's iMac models.

If typing Internet Keywords into the Location Bar is not working for you, check your Smart Browsing preferences to be sure the Internet Keywords feature is enabled.

 

Quick Stock Quotes

To see a recent stock quote for a company, type "quote" followed by the company's stock ticker symbol, and press Enter.

If you don't know a company's stock ticker symbol, type the company's name. The quote page will list all companies with similar names, and you can choose the one for which you want a quote.

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Searching Within a Page

To find text within the page you are currently viewing in Navigator:

  1. Open the Edit menu and choose "Find in This Page". If the page you are viewing contains frames, you may need to click within a frame before you begin your search. You see the "Find in this Page" dialog box.
  2. Type the text you want to find.
  3. Choose from the following search options:
  4. Click Find to begin the search.

To find the same word or phrase again:

Using Find-as-you-type

Other than searching text through the Find dialog, you can also search by typing directly into a Web page.

  1. To search for a link, type several characters into the active browser window to navigate to any link with that text in it.

    If you repeat the same character, it will start to c