Chapter 4. Basic Browsing

Whew. You've made it through the first three chapters, which are full of all the necessary ”yet occasionally mundane ”details that provide the background of Internet usage. Alas, you can now rest assured that the remainder of this book will be nothing but fun, fun, fun!

Well, that might be stretching it a bit. But the fact of the matter is that with this chapter, you begin to get into the meat of why you wanted to get on the Internet in the first place ”browsing the World Wide Web. The Web is one of the two biggest reasons that the average Joe hops online; the other is email (which is covered in Chapter 5, "Sending and Receiving Email").

Over the last six years , the Web has blossomed ”okay, make that exploded . In this one chapter, you'll pick up the basics of getting all around the Web. We'll cover the things that work roughly the same regardless of what browser or ISP you're using. We'll cover specific information on each browser, plus America Online, in Chapters 8 through 10.