Top 10 Internet tips and tricks

First Know your Internet browser shortcuts

There are dozens of different shortcut keys that can be used with Internet browsers. Below are a few of our top suggested Internet browser shortcuts.

- Pressing Alt + D in any major Internet browser will move the cursor into the address bar. This is a great way to quickly enter an Internet address without having to click the mouse cursor in the address bar.
- Hold down the Ctrl key and press the + or - to increase and decrease the size of text.
- Press the backspace key or hold down the Alt key + left arrow to go back a page.
- Press F5 to refresh or reload a web page.
- Press F11 to make the Internet browser screen full screen. Press F11 again to return back to the normal view.
- Press Ctrl + B to open your Internet bookmarks.
- Press Ctrl + F to open the find box in the browser to search for text within the web page you're looking at.

You don't need the http:// portion of a web page

When typing an Internet address you do not need to type http:// or even www. in the address. For example, if you wanted to visit Google you could just type google.com and press enter. To make things even quicker, if you're visiting a .com address you can type google and then press Ctrl + Enter to type out the full http://www.google.com address.

Quickly move between the fields of a web page

If you're filling out an online form, e-mail, or other text field you can quickly move between each of the fields by pressing the Tab key or Shift + Tab to move back a field. For example, if you're filling out your name and the next field is your e-mail address you can press the Tab key to switch to the e-mail field.

Tip: This tip also applies to the buttons, if you press tab and the web developer has designed correctly the button should be selected and will allow you to press the space bar or enter to push the button.

Tip: If you have a drop-down box that lists every country or every state you can click that box and then press the letter of the state or country you're looking for. For example, is a drop-down box of States in the United States you could press u on the keyboard to quickly scroll to Utah.

Use Internet search engines to their full potential

Make sure to get the most out of every search result. If you're not finding what you want try surrounding the text in quotes. For example, if you were searching for 'computer help' this actually searches for pages that contain both computer and help and not necessarily pages that have computer and help next to each other. If you search for "computer help" with the quotes around the search query this will only return pages that actually have computer and help next to each other.

Tip: Many new computer users also don't realize that in every search box you can press enter instead of having to move the mouse button over to the Search button.