Last time we looked at a couple of browser tricks. The column was well received so today we’ll look at a few more.
For quite a long while now you have not needed to type www. or .com in most web addresses/URLs. If you type only the main domain name, dnronline in your browser’s address bar, and press the Ctrl/Enter keys your browser will automatically fill in the www. and .com.
Here are many more Ctrl key combos and how they work in most browsers. Try them in your browser to check them out.
These are the same as above; Shift/Enter gives you the .net address. Then there is Ctrl/Shift/Enter which yields the .org addresses. Add the Alt key to any of the three above and the pages will be opened in a new tab in your browser.
Do you ever have a hard time seeing the text or even a graphic on a web page? If so try Ctrl/+ key combo. It will make the page larger. Try it several times and oops, too large? Just use the Ctrl/- keys to make the page smaller. Finally when you want to return to the normal or default size, use Ctrl/0. (That is the zero character not a capital O letter.)
Here are some more shortened definitions; Ctrl/T – new tab, Ctrl/N – new window, Ctrl/Tab – view the next tab, Ctrl/Shift/Tab- view the previous tab, Ctrl/Left Click or middle click on a link – opens the linked page in new tab, Ctrl/F – search for text on the page, Ctrl/R or the F5 key – refresh web page you are on, Ctrl/I – open your favorites, Ctrl/D – save a web page to your Favorites and for the last Control key combo today (yes, there are more) Ctrl/H to see the pages your browser has visited in the past (History).
Even though I capitalized all the letters above you only need to use lower case characters. I used capitals because they are sometimes easier to distinguish here.
Here are a few more easy ones for you to check out. To move to the top of the page you are viewing, press your Home key. You can then press the End key to get to the very bottom of a page.
Try the backspace key if you have been browsing multiple pages in a tab, it will go back one page. Then you can use the Shift/Backspace keys to move forward a page. Yes, these are the same as your back and forward buttons on your browser, just a different way to maneuver about.
If you are reading a large article and want more reading room and less buttons, try the F11 key. That is the actual key and not a combo. To bring the buttons and toolbars back press F11 again.
Type "?" in your URL/address bar and press enter. It will quickly take you to your default search engine.
This trick is not a browser trick but a Google trick which is a single site search. If you want to search only one site on the internet for text, use this trick. You enter the search term(s) with double quote marks around it, then a space and finally the word, "site:" along with the site address. In this example you are looking for this column on the DoubleClick.info site. Go to Google.com as usual and enter, "browser tricks" site:doubleclicks.info. For this trick and only this one you must include the double-quotes around the text you are searching for or your results may not be accurate.