What’s a Google?

The internet.

Where all good intentions of being productive go to die.

However there are many folks out there who blissfully spend their time productively since they have trouble understanding the internet. In my experience it usually comes down to an issue of jargon – I mean if someone never explained in detail to you what a browser is, how the heck are you supposed to know how to change it?

To that end I’ve included below a set of definitions and metaphors that I use to help explain the internet to the people in my life who I think are being too productive. Next time you need to explain the internet or browsers or any of that stuff to someone you can try using these ideas.

Or if you are one of those productive people who don’t feel as confident with the internet: Welcome! But you should probably stop reading because once you start using the internet, you never really get things done ever again.

Sigh…

Websites and Web Pages

 Let’s start by thinking about the internet as a big city. Every city is made up of lots of buildings right? Let’s say web pages are those buildings.

Every screen you see on the internet is a web page. Those web pages are organized into websites. Websites are a collection of web pages that are all connected. (For instance a company website has a bunch of web pages about the company). A website is is like a street of the internet city and the web pages are the different buildings on the street.

Browsers

This is the program that lets you go onto the internet. It’s the thing/icon you would click on your computer if you wanted to access the internet. If the internet is a big city then the browser is your car that allows you to drive along the streets of the internet, visiting the different buildings or web pages. There are a number of different kinds of browsers and I’ve listed them below:

Internet Explorer – The old truck of browsers. Slow, guzzles gas, and while it might be comforting you should probably upgrade.

Safari – The run down sedan for Mac users. Better than Internet Explorer but you know in your heart you can do better.

Mozilla Firefox – The fancy pickup truck of browsers. Fast and can be loaded with lots of extra features (Jacked up, grills etc.) to make it super useful for the folks who create websites.

Google Chrome – The luxury car of browsers. Pretty fast, user friendly, and the browser we suggest for Inclusion by IBEX. (Debatably faster than Firefox in the long run.)

Opera, Maxthon, etc. – Yeah, there are more browsers out there but if you are looking these ones up then you, or the person you are teaching, probably doesn’t need this tutorial.

How do I know which browser I’m using? – If you aren’t sure, that generally means you are using Internet Explorer. It’s the regular browser that comes pre-installed for most computers.

Another good way to identify your browser is to think about what button you clicked on to start your browser. You can see from the chart below which browser you are using based on what button you clicked on.

If you want to change your browser that might get you into some more advanced waters than we are going for in this article but here’s a ‘link’ (We’ll explain those next time, click it and it will drive your browser to a new web page.) to where you can download Google Chrome. Follow the instructions and you should do just fine.

Link to download and install Google Chrome.

Driving Your Browser

Now since every browser is different the controls are slightly different (Like the windshield wipers in American vs. Japanese cars) however like cars there are some basic functions that every browser has.

• Going Backwards – Browsers are pretty smart cars. They remember the last web page you drove to before you drove to the one you are at currently. If you ever want to go backwards and head to the last web page you were at just look to the top of the screen, find the arrow that points left, and click it.

• And Forwards – Notice that after you go backwards you can then click the arrow pointing to the right. That button lets you go forward through your route. So if you clicked back once, a forward click would return you to the page you clicked back from.

• URL Bar – That white bar at the top of your screen. First though, we should explain what a URL is…

URL

It’s an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator. Yeah I dunno.

Basically the URL is the name for the code address of a specific web page. If the internet is a city, then every web page is a house and thus has an address in the city. The URL is that address. Every browser has a white bar at the top that shows the address of the current page you are on. Right now your browser white bar should say www.ibexinclusion.ca/blog/whats-a-google/, since that’s the address of this post. 

When you put a new address or URL in that bar (Say someone gives you a web page URL) and press enter the browser will drive to that new address and show you the web page at that address.  

PHEW.

That’s probably enough jargon for the new drivers on a first pass. To be honest though, I haven’t even scratched the surface (I didn’t even get a chance to talk about what a Google is, for crying out loud!). But fear not: there will be a part two to this post where I promise to expand my metaphors to navigating the web. Stay tuned folks!