Web browsers
Set your cache to zero
Corrupted Netscape preference file
Netscape super-reload
Forward and Back a page
Forward and Back a site in Netscape
Switching between open windows
Contextual menu
Open a link in a new window
Netscape history
Page navigation
Greyed out buttons in Netscape 4
Related links
Also see the following Q & A articles:
How do I create search buttons in my
Web browser?
How to fight SPAM
Bits and Bytes explained
If you're on a high-speed internet connection, you can actually increase the speed of your browsing by setting your cache to zero: Fetching data directly into RAM is often faster than accessing data from your local disk, and your browser won't need to constantly erase files from the cache to make room for new data.
Corrupted Netscape preference file
If Netscape starts acting strangely, you may have a corrupted preference file. Drag the preference file (System Folder > Preferences > Netscape Users > user folder > Netscape Preferences) to your desktop and relaunch Netscape. If the problem you experienced is fixed, then trash the preference file from your desktop (you will have to re-enter some preferences).
To force Netscape to get the latest version of a page (super-reload) from a Web server, hold the option key down as you click reload.
Pressing command-right arrow or command-left arrow will take you forward or back a page, just as if you pressed the buttons by the same names on the tool bar.
Forward and Back a site in Netscape
In Netscape, pressing command-option-left arrow or command-option-right arrow will take you back and forward not just one page, but an entire site.
Switching between open windows
In Netscape, pressing command-1 (one) cycles through open windows
- this is helpful if you often browse with two or more open windows. This
key command also opens a new window if you only have one window open.
In Internet Explorer 5, the equivalent keyboard shortcut is command-~
(you'll have to press command-shift-~ to access the tilde)
A seldom-used feature of Web browsers is the contextual menu, which is accessed by clicking and holding down on your mouse button (or the usual control-click for faster access). Contextual menus for static areas on a page give you basic navigation options, whereas the menus for hyperlinks provide many saving and navigation options.
Command-clicking a hyperlink will open the linked document or image in a new browser window.
In Netscape, type in "about:global" (without the quotes) into the location box, and you will receive a list of URL's that you have visited, although they won't be sorted in any meaningful fashion. Netscape versions 6 and above now have a far more useful history feature.
An often overlooked navigation method of browsing a long web page is
the use of page up, page down, home, end,
and the arrow keys found on most keyboards. If you are viewing
a window composed of frames, simply click anywhere in the frame you want
to scroll (you can tab between frames too, but there may not be any visual
hints to indicate which frame you're in).
You can speed up the scrolling of your web pages by setting the
"repeat rate" to the highest level, and "delay" time
to the lowest level in your keyboard control panel.
Greyed out buttons in Netscape 4
Netscape versions 4.x have a bug where the navigation buttons grey out unexpectedly. This occurs after Java is started up by a web page that has a Java applet. To fix this, simply click anywhere in the main page, or switch to another app (such as a quick click on the finder) and return to Netscape... this will force Netscape to redraw the buttons correctly.
Related links
Microsoft's
How-to articles for Internet Explorer which include: Customizable
tool bars, Using
the Search Assistant and Page Holder features, and Tips
and tricks
Use British spelling in your searches