The Internet is not owned by anyone and its content is not controlled or regulated by any governing body. To access it, most people connect to the server belonging to their ISP (Internet Service Provider), which is permanently online.

Viewing Web pages requires an application that can read HTML documents, called a browser. Mosaic (the first browser), was produced by Netscape. Navigator is Netscape's current browser. Microsoft's Internet Explorer is another common browser, not an ISP as some people think.

Every Web page has a unique URL (web address). If you go to the the front page of the Netscape Web site, you will see the the full URL for that particular page is: http://www.netscape.co.uk.

If you know the URL of the page you are looking for, type it into the 'Location' (web site address) field in the Toolbar at the top of this window and press 'Enter' or 'Return' on your keyboard. This will take you to the relevant page on the Internet. You can also move to a new Web page by clicking on a Hyperlink. Hyperlinks, or simply Links, can be hidden in a few words of underlined text, a button or an image on a Web page. You will know you have found a Link when the mouse pointer turns into a picture of a hand.

URLs are a bit like telephone numbers, if you get one digit wrong they don't work. If you are unsure of the URL of a Web page, try using an Internet keyword. Navigator contains a database of most of the popular Web sites within its software. Typing the name of the company or a keyword associated with the Web site instead of the URL will work just as well for many sites.

IF Navigator's own database does not contain the URL you need or if you want to search on a particular subject matter, you will need to use a Search Engine. A Search Engine is a huge online directory that looks like a Web page.

When you enter some keywords and click on 'Search', the Search Engine searches its records and returns a list of Links to Web pages that best matches your search description. You can then visit any page in the list by clicking its hyperlink.

All Search Engines are different, some specialising in hobbies, some in business and so on. Different Search Engines will produce different results so it is worth trying several until you get a feel for which Engine best suits you.

Here are the URLs of some well-known Search Engines:

• Yahoo http://uk.yahoo.com/

• Lycos http://www.lycos.co.uk/

• Infoseek http://www.google.com/

• AltaVista http://www.altavista.com/

• Excite http://www.excite.co.uk/

If you experience problems with Real Audio/Video after you have downloaded the new player try these trouble shooting techniques. If you have a problem which is not listed here, please refer to the help section at real.com.

Audio and video encoded with the latest Surestream technology should not buffer however, quality may vary as the audio/video plays.

The name of the Web page will be added to the bottom of the 'Bookmarks' menu. In Windows, you can also create Bookmarks by dragging links from Web pages and dropping them onto the 'Bookmarks' menu.

The next time you want to visit that site, you simply have to open the 'Bookmarks' menu again and select the Bookmark from the list.

You will find your list of Bookmarks will grow quickly, so it's a good idea to organise them into categories. To do this you will need to create new folders with descriptive names.

Open the Bookmarks menu and click on Edit Bookmarks [Netscape 4] or Manage Bookmarks [Netscape 6]. A new window will open showing all of your current Bookmarks. You can move Bookmarks by dragging them to a folder. To create a new folder, click on File then New Folder [Netscape 4] or File then New and then New Folder [Netscape 6].

Type in an appropriate name for the folder and drag your selected Bookmarks on to it.

To return to a Favourites page, open the Favourites menu and select your page from the list.

Alternatively, you can have your Favourites sites listed in a column on the left side of the browser by clicking the Favourites button on the toolbar.

To organise your Favourites: open the Favourites menu and click on Organize Favourites. A dialogue box like the one below will appear.

From here you can create new folders and move your Favourites into them to keep things tidy.

2. Highlight Navigator in the 'Categories' panel on the left

3. Select Home page radio button under the 'Navigator starts with'[Netscape 4] or 'When Navigators starts up, Display' [Netscape 6] menu

4. Type the URL of the page you wish to start with in the 'Location' field - don't forget the http://

e.g. http://www.netscape.co.uk

2. The 'Home Page' option is under the General tab.

3. Enter the URL of the page you wish to start with next to 'Address' - don't forget the http://

When you click on the 'Back' or 'Forward' buttons in Communicator, pages are retrieved from your machine's cache. This means your computer doesn't have to retrieve the page from the Internet each time you view it.

To ensure your computer runs smoothly, you will need to clear these pages from the cache regularly.

2. Open the 'Advanced' category and select Cache.

3. Click on the Clear Memory Cache and Clear Disk Cache buttons and press OK.

1. Open Internet Explorer, click on Tools and Internet Options

2. From the 'General' tab click the button labelled Delete Files

3. Place a tick in the 'Delete all offline content' box. Click on OK

This will empty the cache of stored temporary internet files on your computer.

1. Open the Edit menu and click on Preferences

2. Highlight Navigator in the list of categories on the left

3. In the 'History' panel on the right, click on the Clear History button

Alternatively, to set a limit for the number of days that pages are saved in your History, enter a figure in 'Pages in history expire after ___ days'.

Note: Clearing the history does not clear the Location Bar in Netscape Communicator. Click on the Clear Location Bar button to do this.

1. Open the Tools menu and click on Internet Options

2. Select the General Tab

3. Click on the Clear History button and press OK

Alternatively, to set a limit for the number of days that pages are saved in your History, enter a figure in 'Days to keep pages in history'.

Netscape Communicator 4 does not have a feature which can convert Internet Explorer Favourites to Netscape HTML Bookmarks. However, any of the following non-Netscape utilities can assist you with the conversion process:

• IE Converter, a shareware tool from: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/

• Columbine Bookmark Merge, freeware from: http://www.clark.net/pub/garyc/

There are also many other conversion tools and Bookmark management utilities available. You can find such applications on any of the following download sites:

• http://www.tucows.com

• http://www.download.com

• http://www.zdnet.com/downloads

A "cookie" is a small file that is automatically copied to your computer's hard drive when you visit a Web site. A cookie can help a Web site place advertisements which may be of particular interest to you based on the pages you have viewed on that site. Cookies can also be used to determine whether you are a regular visitor or if this is your first visit to the site. In the case of a regular visitor, the Web site would automatically detect the cookie (saved to your machine) from your previous visit and bypass the introductory page designed for newbies.

For instance, if you shop for books online, the bookstore's Web site might use a cookie to store information about your previous purchases, and later use that information to recommend particular books.

The instructions below show you how to change the cookie settings in your Browser.

1. Open the Edit menu and click on Preferences

2. Open the 'Advanced' category and choose one of the four options on the 'Cookies' menu on the right.

In most cases, 'Enable all cookies' for Netscape 6 or 'Accept all cookies' for Netscape 4 is the best choice. If you want to be notified when Communicator accepts a cookie, select 'Warn me before storing a cookie'in Netscape 6 or 'Warn me before accepting a cookie.' in Netscape 4.

1. From the Tools menu click on Internet Options

2. Select Advanced and choose one of the Cookie options

WARNING: Files downloaded from the Web may contain computer viruses or Trojan Horse programs. Viruses and can cause harm to your computer files, contain objectionable graphics, or even compromise the security of your account. When downloading files, you should always check for viruses and Trojan Horse programs before you open the files on your computer.

If you wish, you can customise your security settings in Netscape, for safer Internet browsing. Follow the instructions below to disable Java:

1. Open the Netscape browser and select Edit followed by Preferences

2. Click on Advanced to display the 'Advanced Preferences' window

3. Untick Enable Java and click Ok to return to the main screen.

Select File and Exit to close Netscape. When you restart Netscape the changes you have made to your security settings will now be in effect.

2. A new 'Bookmarks' window will open

3. Click once to highlight the Bookmark you want to delete. If you double-click, you will load the page into your browser

4. Open the Edit menu and click on Delete

5. Close the 'Bookmarks' window. The deleted Bookmarks are now removed from your 'Bookmarks' menu.

Note: If you deleted the wrong Bookmark, open the Edit menu and select Undo to restore it.

By default, your Bookmarks are saved as an HTML document which will only display the names of your Bookmarks, without their URLs (web addresses). If you want to see the URLs, you must save your Bookmarks as a text document with the extension: '.txt'

1. Open the Bookmarks menu and click on Edit Bookmarks

2. When the 'Bookmarks' window opens, open the File menu and select Save As. You will be prompted to choose a location to save to, you can also change the file name

• If you want to print out the names of your Bookmarks, save the file as Bookmark.htm

• If you wish to print the names and URLs of your Bookmarks, save the file as Bookmark.txt

3. Click on the File menu and select Open Page [Netscape 4] Open File [Netscape 6]

• If you are using Netscape 4, a dialogue box will open, ensure that the 'Navigator' radio button is selected and click on Choose File

4. If you have saved your Bookmarks as a text file, choose All Files from the 'Files of type:' drop-down menu

5. Find the file you saved above, and open it. You should see all of your Bookmarks listed

6. To print the file, open the File menu and click on Print

TIP: Saving a copy of your Bookmarks file like this, is a good way to keep a backup copy or to share Bookmarks with friends and colleagues. Save your Bookmarks file to a floppy disk or attach it to an e-mail message to transfer it between computers.