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| Vocabulary |
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 Cookies
Cookies are simple text files typically 100-200 bytes in file size. Cookies contain data or session information about a user who has visited a Web server. Because the data contained in a cookie may reveal personal information about your system, it is advisable to set the proper security controls on your browser software when on the web.
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Cache
Whenever you "surf" the Internet, your browser temporarily stores images and pages on your hard drive. This is done to speed up your download when you revisit pages - the images are already on your hard drive, so you don't have to wait for them to download again. The place where the information is stored is called the cache.
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Plug-Ins
Plug-ins are extras that can be added to the browser on your computer (e.g. Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, Opera etc.) to provide additional capability and features beyond the standard. Common plug-ins include Flash, Shockwave, and Apple's QuickTime.
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What is a browser?
A browser is a piece of software that is designed to display the enriched graphics and images of a web page on the Word Wide Web (WWW). Technically a browser is an example of client software. This is a program that resides on your local computer. The browser can be considered the communications interface to other computer systems on the Internet.
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What does a browser do?
Web sites are created and saved as documents in a format known as Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML). Originally these documents were static in nature because they lacked the interactivity and enriched graphics that are viewed and displayed today. HTML documents are simply text-based codes instructing the browser how to format and display a web page.
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Is there more than one browser?
Yes. There are a number of browsers available to you. The most common ones are Internet Explorer (IE), Netscape Navigator (NN) and Opera. IE comes bundled with the Window's operating system. The other programs must be either downloaded via the Internet or ordered from the software company and then installed to your machine. Most of the available browsers do have a "free" version that you can use. Some will put some form of advertising in it as a way of "charging" for their software. IF you wish to purchase the software, it should be ad-free.
Each browser contains certain features and technical differences. Electronic mail (E-mail), history of past visited web sites and search capabilities are to name a few. But the most important feature to be mentioned is security. Some browsers also give you the ability to block and restrict visits to sites that contain violence or pornography. Most browsers allow some sort of cookie administration. All of the mentioned browsers will allow the user control over these features. |
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