Browsing is the term we use for looking at pages on the world wide web. Maybe you haven’t given it much thought, but there are many ways to browse the Internet.
Firstly, you have a choice of devices. If you own a computer, tablet, laptop, smartphone, and/or smart TV, you can choose the one that best suits your needs.
Secondly, you have a choice of browsers. Depending on the device you are on, and the operating system it uses, you can choose from (in approximate order of current popularity): Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge. There are a few others, but those are the main ones. You don’t have to use the one your device gave you by default.
Contrary to advertising, most browsers are created equal. What makes one “better” than the other is popularity. Web designers test the pages they design on the popular browsers; they don’t always take the time to test on all browsers. They also tend to focus on current versions of those browsers, not on the older versions.
Once you have chosen your device and your browser, there are several ways you can get to the information you are seeking. If you click on a link sent to you via email, text, or social media, your default browser will open and take you straight to that page. You can also use your browser history or bookmarks/favorites to go to a web page you’ve been to before. If you heard a web address on the radio or TV, and know the exact spelling, you can open a browser and type it directly into the address bar.
Searching for an address is an indirect way to view a web page. You open your browser, go to any one of countless search engine sites, type something in that approximates the address or its content, and click the best result from that search. Popular search engines include Google, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, and Bing. Beware that search results can contain undesirable results, so be careful which result you click on.
Note that if a web page doesn’t appear properly on one browser, you can always copy the address from the address bar, open an alternative browser, and paste into that address bar.