Monday, March 26,  2001		Article

Setting browser to surf faster
By Vipul Verma

ONE common problem with which most software and programs suffer is their common orientation for the beginners as well as professionals. There are hardly any programs that have been categorised for beginners or professionals. Take for example, the browser.

A browser is one of the most important part of a computer system today as almost all the computers are being used for surfing on the Internet at some time or other, and thus it will not be exaggeration of facts, if it is said that it is also the most often used program. Despite this, the browser is common for all types of users. But is it all that has been offered as a standard browser or could there be more developments and enhancements to your browser?

There are certainly a lot of enhancements, which could be done to your browser and which can thus improve its utility for the users. These enhancements can be termed tips and tricks for the browsers.

Normally, when you start the Internet browser, it opens a default page, which is the homepage of its respective manufacturer. In case of Internet Explorer, the Microsoft’s home page is the default page, whereas in case of Netscape, the Web site of Netscape is being set as default. In a majority of cases, people wish that either their own home page or some other utility site like Yahoo.com, go.com, ask Jeeves.com etc be set as their default site. Though it is simple yet a majority of people just go on using the default pages due to ignorance. For changing the default pages follow these steps. If you are using Internet Explorer, simply open the browser and click on Tools menu, now click on Internet options sub-menu. In Window that opens on your computer screen, type in the URL of the Web site in the homepage section that you would like to use as your default home page. Similarly, in case of Netscape Navigator, click on Edit menu and then click the Preferences sub-menu. Now in the homepage location box, enter the URL of your favourite Web site. Regarding the browsers, there is also one very important utility in desktop settings, where your favourite Web site can be used as desktop and by simply clicking on your desktop, you can actually activate your browser. So, it is just like having your browser open all the time on your computer.

Another case of common features in a browser is of text size and colours. Normally, some persons prefer large fonts, while others prefer smaller ones. As far as the browser is concerned, the font size is common. However, you can change the size of the fonts as per your requirement by using a simple tip. In case of Internet Explorer version 5 or higher, first set the browser to override Web page settings. Then click on Tools menu on the menu bar and click on Internet Options sub menu. In the Windows, which opens on the computer screen click on the General tab button and click on Accessibility. In the following dialog box, check each of these top three check boxes: namely "Ignore colours specified on Web pages," "Ignore font styles specified on Web pages," and "Ignore font sizes specified on Web pages." Now click OK to return to the Internet Options dialog box.

In the next step, choose view menu option and select text size of your choice (largest, larger, medium, smaller, or smallest). Though these changes won’t affect all text on every page yet they should work for most standard pages.

Though faster surfing and browsing is everyone’s need yet again the preferences may vary. For example for some persons, the opening of a Web site is more important, no matter some of its features may be suppressed, whereas for others proper opening of site may be more important no matter how much time it takes. So that’s another area of common features, which needs browser tips and tricks to customise the browser to individual preference. If you belong to the former category, who would like to have faster surfing on the Internet, then the use of some tips and tricks may actually help. First of all for fast surfing, you need to change some settings in your browser. The first such setting is to cut down the multimedia contents, which normally eats up a lot of bandwidth. Thus, in order to disable the streaming audios and videos, click on the tools menu in the Internet Explorer and then click on the Internet Options from the drop-down menu and then click the Advanced tab.

Now scroll down to the Multimedia segment and uncheck the boxes in front of Play Sounds, Play Video, and Show Pictures. These are temporary changes in settings and whenever you wish, you can restore these to original. For this you simply need to recheck the boxes. In order to turn off Java, select Internet Options and the Security tab, then click the Custom Level button. Check the Disable box to turn off ActiveX Controls and Java applets, or check prompt to have IE warn you when an applet tries to load. Though disabling Java may create problems in some sites but for other sites it will be a fast way of opening the Web site.

Similarly, you can enhance your browsing experience by disabling the animated GIFs also, which though are relatively smaller in size as compared to the streaming audio or video, yet also puts some strain on the bandwidth. Many times the animated GIFs are even responsible for hanging your browser. Thus for the sake of faster surfing you can even disable these animated GIFs and stopping them from loading would eventually speed up your surfing speed. To disable the animated GIFs in the Internet options under the Tools menu, click on the Advanced tab. Scroll down to the Multimedia section, deselect the Play Animations option, and click OK. Having this setting on, you will only see the first frame of the GIF file and thus would result in faster loading of the page.

Some other measures to boost the Internet surfing speed include using a blank page as default instead of having a Web site as your default homepage. This will help in loading the sites early as the browser will not wait for the home page to be loaded before loading the Web site you want. Another measure to boost the surfing speed could be to increase your cache. Having higher cache helps, if you visit some sites regularly, as the presence of HTML codes of that site present in the computer actually helps you in loading fast. Thus if you increase the case size in your browser setting, it will help you surf even faster. To increase the cache, in the Internet options of the Tools menu, click on the General tab. In the Temporary Internet Files section, click settings. Under the "Amount of disk space to use," drag the slider to the right; thereby increasing it. Now click OK and close the box. This will ensure faster surfing in future.