It came to our attention last week that there are still those out there who don’t know what a browser is. And since this section of our newsletter is about basics, how much more basic can you get than browsers?
A browser is a person who walks into a store and looks around for hours but never, ever, buys anything. You thought I was going to say a very unattractive female, didn’t you? But that would be a bowser.
Seriously, a browser is the one indispensible program on your computer — without a browser you cannot open Web sites, download programs (generally speaking — but you can use FTP — that’s another story for another day), you could not visit such wonderful and entertaining social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, et. al — what the heck did we do before these sites came along and lifted us from our incipient boredom? I can’t imagine not following someone — and watching their videos showing them eating beignets on the balcony, in silk smoking robes, of their billion-dollar ocean-front villa in Sin Lampoon del a Rosa…my Heaven! That would be a boring world without hearing from folks saying in essence — “Look at me! I’m here and you’re not — you poor simple schmuck! You’re so jealous!” All the while I’m reading about Gustov’s exploits I’m actually thinking ***we’ll all be in the same villa 200 years from now, and we’ll all look pretty much the same — for death is the great equalizer***. I snort at Gustov; I laugh in the face of death.
A browser is the program you use to browse the Web and visit Web sites, download programs, brag about your grandchildren on social networking sites (Gustov aside), access your Gmail account, Outlook.com account, but hopefully not your Yahoo Mail account, which by now has certainly been hacked, given Yahoo’s careless ways.
The three most popular browsers are: Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, and Firefox. There are others like Opera and Maxthon – if you’re the type who likes to defy convention.
So that’s it. In case you”re interested, EB brags way too much on her Facebook page. I’ve pointed that out to her many times, so now she has “unfriended” me. It is a great blow to my egos.
It is really a great idea to install a second browser on your computer in case Internet Explorer decides to be uncooperative (which it tends to do from time to time). We recommend Google Chrome available free at http://google.com/chrome .We also highly recommend anyone using Windows XP switch to Chrome because the version of IE available to XP users is very outdated.
(Note: The errors in the version of this article which appeared in our “InfoAve Premium” newsletter were entirely my own. But my erstwhile editor, EB, should have caught the “your”/”you’re” guffaw and the singular words which should have been plural. If you’re an English expert and you have found even more errors, please tell EB about them; I don’t want to hear it! Forgive the arrows of my whales. )
Thank you for that great explanation. There are some of us that started this computer business very late in life, but eager to learn what things are and how to do many things on our computers. I did know what a browser was to some extent but could never have explained it and understood it so well. Keep in mind you still have a lot of ‘beginners’ that could use a lot of explantions and help. Thanks for all your tips and help. By the way I totally agree with you on your opinions of XP… too bad Microsoft doesn’t agree with us!!!
I have IE,Google Chrome and Firefox as well. I use Google Chrome all the time.the others are just backups.
Darcy had me go on Google Chrome, because I had lots of problems with I.E. I just got rid of XP. It is still slow using I.E. Like you stated TC, its always good to have a back-up.
I am kind of ashamed of myself. I have been using a computer since 2004 and every time you asked for my browser I did absolutely not know what it was. I downloaded Google Chrome awhile back but I always said that my browser was IE. See, there are a lot of us out there after all these years who did not want to ask “what do they mean by a browser”?. Actually I’m FRENCHGLISH and I get mixed up with anything technical. Thanks again but I still feel kind of ashamed of myself for not asking.