Web Browsers

A browser is the program you use for, well, browsing the internet. A search engine is another computer program that is slightly different because it picks out information you are looking for from websites. They usually work together, but have different functions. Windows comes with the browser called Internet Explorer, but there are a number of other browsers you can choose from that are faster, more secure, and just work better. You can also pick different search engines to work with your browser.

Mozilla's Firefox was the leading browser for a long time, but seems to be slipping somewhat lately. Still better than most, and the new versions are coming out regularly. However, Firefox may not be able to keep up with Explorer and Chrome as they continue a blistering pace of development. Some people are already writing eulogies for Firefox (seeing as how they've lost market share from 25% to about 22% at the moment), but the creative Mozilla team may still have some surprises in store.

A new browser is out called Brave. It has a built in advertising blocker, and some interesting new features. It is free to download and seems to work well. It was developed by a guy who had to leave Mozilla (the company who developed Firefox) because he supported marriage rather than the so-called gay marriage. But he is doing well with his new browser, and if you don't like Firefox then Brave is a good alternative.

Internet Explorer is provided with every copy of Windows up to Windows 10, and now they call it Edge, so it seems more popular. There are problems with Explorer 9 64-bit and that version just doesn't work that well. It's slow and not very secure. Internet Explorer 11 was okay but still tended to get corrupted with browser helper objects. Microsoft is big enough to weather this, though, and may be able to work out the kinks to make Explorer better soon. We're not writing them off just yet.

Google Chrome is surging into a leading place now. It's very fast, handles HTML 5 (the new web standard programming language) extremely well, and is very secure. We're not big fans of Google as a company, but the Chrome browser seems to be an excellent product. What we don't like is the fact that it doesn't block ads as well as Firefox and it doesn't show your ten or so most used websites (although this has changed with Chrome 15). Chrome is good, so if you like it stick with it.

Safari is standard with Apple machines, and since they are so cotton-picking stuck up about using Apple software on Apple machines we wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole. But it's probably a decent browser as well.

To use a browser you start the program and at the top is what's called an address bar. All websites have addresses, just like pretty much all houses have addresses (in the U.S. at least). The website address is also called a URL which stands for Universal Resource Locater. It's the thing that starts with www (for world wide web). What you type in is an English website name (again, for English speakers) but what the computer sees is up to a 12-digit number that looks like this: 216.146.16.122 (not a real number) or something similar. Both the website name (like techsupportofgj.com) and it's number equivalent is also called a domain name. You can use the English (or whatever language you speak) name or the number if you know it to find a specific website.

Whichever browser you choose, make sure to download the file first before installing if you can. Just choose the 'Save File' option and pick a place for it on your computer. Then go back and click the install button on the webpage and have it install the second time. With Google Chrome you can click the link in small letters for if you have a problem loading. The reason you want to save the file is that sometimes a newer version comes out that is not as good as it should be. This happened for instance with Internet Explorer 6 and Firefox 5. If you have the file on your computer, you can uninstall the glitchy version and go back to the previous version.

Searching the Web

Under this heading we have tips for searching the web. If you have a good browser, you should be able to choose which search engine program to use. Firefox has a search box where you can pick the search engine before you do a search. Search engines are not all created equal. Some work better for some subjects than others. Google (and most others) allows people with websites to pay for better rankings, so that their site shows up closer to first. If you want to get a good cross section of information on whatever subject you are searching for, use several different search engines.

Websites can be hard to find, and good websites even harder. There are literally millions of websites and more being added every day. These sites are on computers all over the world and can be like trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack. That's why we use search engines.

Search engines rank websites according to how many visitors they get, and how many other websites link to them. So the first websites that show up on a search results page are supposed to be more popular. The theory being that if more people are going to, or linking to, that site then it must be a good one. But a website can also show up on the first pages of a search because of how much they pay for advertising. That's right - if you sell a product, and have enough money, you can pay to have your product's website show up higher in the rankings. So just because a website shows up first or on the first pages of a search doesn't mean it's the best site out there.

If you are searching for information, like say how to harvest sunflower seeds, then a top-ranked website might be a good place to go. But if you are searching for products, that takes a little more work. Don't automatically trust the first few websites that show up on your search results. Look several pages deep, and look with different search engines. Sometimes a company will buy a lot of different website names but they are all owned by one and the same company. This happens with something like batteries, for instance. Try a search using only that word and the first few pages will have websites that are pretty much all owned by the same company (look in the contact information, or notice that they all have the same basic layout).

You also need to know how to search, or how to use words to search. The more specific you can be the better. If you are searching for parts for a lawn mower, use the make and model and the words 'parts' or 'sale.' You'd be surprised at how much information you can turn up. When you search for a product, like a DVD player, add terms for features you'd like to see. If you searching for free software, use the word free, but be careful. Remember what mom and dad always say - THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH.

You still have to be cautious. Using words like 'free' can show search results that are websites just trying to lure you in with a 'free' offer that isn't really free. This is where you have to use your brain to figure out if the website is a good one or not. A good browser helps by identifying many sites that are questionable, but the browser doesn't always know. Brand names (when looking for products) or recognized names (like Amazon) are generally safe, but some sites do something called 'spoofing.'

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Browsing Securely

Before we talk about spoofing (scroll down), this is a good place to talk about security in general. Most black hats (computer hackers with bad intentions) do not hack computers as much as they hack people. What we mean is that most security breaches anymore come from finding out information from people who let it leak out without paying attention to what they are doing. Some people leave passwords written down in a convenient place on their desk. Some respond to email requests for information without determining if the sender is legitimate. Other hackers pick up information from impersonating a manager or officer in the corporation. They find out the organizational structure then call some person low on the totem pole and pump them till they give up the information.

What this means is that you have to be aware of and responsible for your own security. Any request for information has to be verified. Call back the person who asked, using a phone number from the company directory or the yellow pages. Get a crosscut shredder for all papers you throw out with even a tiny scrap of personal information on them. If anyone asks for your birth date or social security number, or personal information on someone else, be instantly suspicious unless you know exactly who they are and why they want the information. Usually that means sitting across a desk from them and looking them in the eye. If something doesn't look right on a new website you are looking at, leave quickly. Don't click on pop up windows asking to scan your computer after telling you there is something wrong. Call Tech Support, and usually we've already heard about it and can advise you accordingly.

We can't just give out personal information without a thought anymore.

Fraud, Identity Theft, and Self-Protection

Spoofing is making a website look like someone else's website. For instance, a website might look like a bank's website, down to using the same logos. Then you start using it thinking you are signing up for an account when really the website is just stealing your information. Spoofing is usually easy to detect, because there are certain things that look out of place. There are errors in English phrasing or word use and other clues like blurry logos. The website URL (the address that you type in starting usually with www) is not quite the same as the real website URL. The important thing is to LOOK. Use the superior search engine called the brain, and do your homework. If there's an 800 number, call it. Even a regular phone number will reveal a lot. Use websites you trust.

Which brings us to email and something called phishing. This is a word that combines 'false' and 'fishing.' It is a way for scammers to get personal information from you. They send you an email that looks like it's from a legitimate company, but it isn't. You click on a link which takes you to a spoof website, then enter personal information. The scammers usually try to tell you that you have to straighten out your account information. To fight this, just call the organization directly. Do not click on email links, ever, to enter personal information or to straighten out an account. Most legitimate organizations will not send you emails like this (with links). If you can't call, just go to the website directly, without clicking on the email link. For instance, if you get something from eBay telling you something is wrong, don't click on the link in the email - start your browser and enter the eBay website directly. They will tell you if something needs to be straightened out. So did we mention that you shouldn't click on the link in an email to straighten out personal accounts?

Vishing and smishing are similar methods of inducing people to give up their identity information voluntarily. Vishing is a voice mail that sounds like it's from your bank or financial institution. It instructs you to call a number because there is trouble with your account. You call the number and get a confirmation code, then call another number where they ask you the personal information. Except they should already have it. Smishing is the same type of thing only with text messages. Again, we cannot emphasize enough, if you need to check on an account, do it with numbers from your own paperwork or the back of the credit card. Never, ever, ever respond directly to any claim that your accounts are in trouble.

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Junk Email

Controlling junk mail just requires a few simple steps. If you subscribed to it, by giving your email to a legitimate site such as a store, then you can unsubscribe by clicking a link at the bottom of the email. Usually this link is actually labeled 'unsubscribe.' The link will take you to a web site where you have to click a box or something to stop the emails.

If you use Microsoft Outlook or a similar program for downloading your email to your computer, it has a Junk Mail feature that can help quite a bit. You can either mark a Sender as a blocked sender, or the program will try to figure out what is junk and what is not. You will have to assist Outlook a little by going to the Junk E-Mail folder and either blocking senders or marking them as okay to send. You can also move a non-junk email back to your inbox and then delete the junk ones, essentially confirming the program's choice and helping it 'learn' what is junk and what is not. There are also third party junk email programs that work in a similar fashion with Outlook and other email programs. Mozilla Thunderbird (no longer supported but still a good program and free) also has a feature that lets you label junk email and automatically send future mailings to the trash bin.

One thing though, to help minimize junk email - you don't have to unsubscribe to everything. Sometimes you'll get random junk that is an attempt to find out if your email address is still operating or not. A junk sender might've picked up your email at random from sampling traffic flowing through the web, and sends you an email so you will reply. Then they know your email address is live, and collect those emails and sell them to other junk emailers. So, if you get something you know you didn't sign up for, the first step is just to mark it as junk and block the sender. Most of the time that will take care of it.

Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) has some pretty good programs for recognizing junk email too, because so many of the same emails are sent at the same time. They set up filters to grab mass emailers that aren't on their 'allowed' list and jam them at their source. But some still gets through because the filters aren't perfect (and unfortunately spam frequently resembles legitimate emails).

Browser Screen Control

If you want to make the website your are looking at bigger, press the 'Ctrl' and the 'plus' key on your keyboard. Repeat until you get the size you want. If you want to make the website look smaller, press the 'Ctrl' and the 'minus' keys, and repeat until you get the size you want.

Google Chrome has a feature in the Options called Page Zoom that you can set to display pages at a certain size. The nice thing about it is it's based on percentage, so different pages will zoom differently (instead of one blanket size function).

Blocking Website Ads

Most browsers have popup blockers now. But for really blocking ads, which helps your web pages load faster, you need Adblock Plus. It works with a href="http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/">Firefox and Google Chrome (but it works better with Firefox), and does a good job making your requested web pages load faster and look cleaner. If you want to see some ads, then it is easy to turn off for a page or a website. As we mentioned before, the Brave browser has a built in ad blocker so you don't need to install Ad Block Plus.

There is a war going on now between advertisers and ad blockers. Ad Block Plus and others are so effective at blocking ads that advertisers are having to get sneakier. Some build in the ads on their page so they don't look like an ad to the blocker. Others are using features such as the Fox News red banner at the bottom of the page asking you to unblock their page or whitelist it. Every time a website tries some new thing to sneak ads past the blocker the blocker people figure out a way to block them too. Let's hope the good guys win.

Web Browser Security

Browsers have security settings usually under a menu heading of Tools or Options. Set them too high and you won't be able to do hardly anything on the web. Set them too low and you might as well not have any security. Medium high or thereabouts is a reasonable compromise. You should also select any option like "Warn when site is suspicious" or "Warn when redirecting." Redirecting is when you type in one URL and you end up on a page with a different URL. A lot of times this is okay. But a lot of times redirecting is suspicious. You just have to pay attention.

You can also block cookies completely except for specific sites, or block third party cookies only. Third party cookies are usually not needed at all. Cookies are actually okay little bits of information. They are used to store your preferences when visiting a website. For instance, Amazon keeps your wish list on a cookie on your computer. Some sites store your purchase record in a cookie. So cookies are not all bad. In Firefox you can block specific websites and they won't be able to store anything.

Most browsers will also keep track of your passwords and usernames for each website if you want. Use this service with caution though. It is theoretically possible that someone could use your computer and get into your web page accounts. Or someone could hack your computer and come up with the information. That's a pretty remote possibility, but there are two things you can do to protect yourself. One is to keep the information off of the computer. But this means a written record which has it's own problems. The other is to encrypt the data on your hard drive. If you do the second option make sure you don't loose the password to decode. Still, someone could get your password for decoding, so one way or another you still have passwords floating around. There is also good software out there that can find most passwords anyway. Passwords and encrypting are no substitute for being responsible in the first place, both with what kind of data you access and how you look after your computer.

If you want to encrypt, there's a free program called TrueCrypt for all platforms (Mac OS X, Linux, Windows) that many people recommend. We don't know much about it, but it seems like a decent program choice for encrypting. Be careful though. Many people have encrypted only to be sorry later when they couldn't access the hard drive because someone passed on or forgot the password.