Browser Tricks for Faster/Smarter Web Surfing

You spend a lot of time in your Web browser. So why not get the most out of what your browser has to offer?
The fact is, most Internet users just scratch the surface of the time-saving features built in to the two most popular browsers on the market - Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) and Mozilla Firefox. Learning some of those features, though, can save you a lot of time over the long haul, perhaps leaving you to wonder how you ever lived without them.

Quicker tabs:
Firefox’s original claim to fame was its tabbed interface. But now that Internet Explorer 7 has tabs as well, everyone can enjoy looking through multiple Web site without spawning a plethora of browser windows.
Most people use the slow way to open a new page in a tab. In In Internet Explorer, instead of clicking a new tab and then opening a Web page, hold down the Ctrl key and click a link you’d like to appear in a new tab. The page will open in a new tab while leaving focus on the current page. Hold down Shift and Ctrl at the same time while clicking a link to open the page in a foreground tab, stealing the focus from any page already displayed.
In Firefox, instead of righ-clicking a link and choosing Open Link in New Tab, click a link with your mouse scrool wheel button to open it immediately in a new tab. You can also use the Ctrl and Shift-Ctrl keyboard shortcuts that apply to IE7
Go smoothly:
You spend a lot of time scrolling up and down long Web pages, and both Firefox and IE7 make those trips less jarring with a feature known as smooth scrolling. Essentially, smooth scrolling makes moving up and down a Web page less jarring by smoothing out the transition when you press the PgUp or PgDown key or use your mouse to move the horizontal scroll bar of your browser.
In Firefox, enable smooth scrolling in the Advanced section of the options dialog box. In IE7, click “Use Smooth Scrolling” in the Advanced section of the Internet Options dialog box. In both browsers, the Options dialog is accessible from the Tools menu.

Shorthand searches:
Many people spend a lot of time typing the “World Wide Web” and “.com” of Web addresses. In both Firefox and IE7, that’s unnecessary.
Instead, just click in the Address bar of either Web browser, type the root of the URL - for example, just “microsoft” instead of www.microsoft.com - and and press Ctrl-Enter. Either browser will automatically insert “http://www” in front of the word and “.com” at the end, giving you the complete address you need to reach the Web site.
In Firefox, you can also press Shift-Enter to have the browser append “.net” to the word, and Ctrl-Shift-Enter will take you to “.org” addresses.

Nifty zooms:
Having trouble reading text on a Web page? Both IE7 and Firefox have handy zoom features with which you can quickly increase and decrease the size of text on a page.
In either browser, hold down the Ctrl key and click the plus (+) symbol on the numeric keypad of your keyboard to increase the size of text. Use Ctrl in conjunction with the minus symbol to decrease the size. To reset the text size, hold down the Ctrl key and press the zero (0) key.
In IE7, you can also do the same thing if you have a scroll wheel on your mouse. Hold down the Ctrl key and move the scroll wheel forward or backward to increase or decrease the text size. If you don’t have a scroll wheel.

Living with AutoComplete:
The AutoComplete features of IE7 and Firefox are great if you don’t want to retype data constantly into form fields and if you have no concerns about privacy on the PC you use. But plenty of people forego the advantages of AutoComplete for fear that their histories can be used against them somehow.
No problem. IE7 makes removing AutoComplete history simple. From the Tools menu, click Delete Browsing History. You’ll then have the option of which types of browsing history to remove. At any time in IE, you can press Ctrl-H to get see exactly which sites you’ve visited. Right-clicking any of them will present a pop-up menu from which you can select Delete.
Firefox is just as effective at helping you stay secure. To eliminate AutoComplete history in Firefox, open the Tools menu, and click Options, Privacy. Explore the options in the Private Data area to determine exactly which AutoComplete information and history data you’d like to remove - and when.