A silly question?

[Aggers]

I know I've a lot to learn about computers, but there is one thing I feel I should know but don't.

If I want to go to a new website, I now first of all open one of my regulars such as Vocal Voices,
using a short-cut, select and delete its addess at the top of the screen, then type in there the
new address I want.

I feel there should be a more direct way of going to a site, but I can't find it. If I type its address
into Internet Explorer this is obviously wrong, as I just get a Google-type seach result which is useless.

[Rodo]

If you put links for all these into your favourites, then all you have to do is click on those when you want to go into a site. You don't need to bother with addresses etc.

[Workingman]

Aggers. Rodo is right for those sites you visit and like. You can add them to "favorites" and open them from there - a right click in a blank area of the page and selecting Add to favorites does that.

But what about the address bar?

It is a necessary evil, but those nice people in internetland have come up with some ideas to make it more "helpful", or not, as the case might be. I find them more of an annoyance than a help.... so how, to get rid.

The days of having to type in http(s)://www have just about gone. BBC.co.uk will get you to the BBC, and you do not have to clear what is already in the address bar, just left click in it and type.

Now, to stop all this other stuff.

Click on the gear wheel on the address bar and choose the Internet Options pane. On the General tab go to Tab Settings. In the new pane make sure Enable Tabbed Browsing and also the top three and last items below it are ticked - Quick tabs and tab groups should be unticked. Now go to When a new tab opens and select it should be in the new tab page. When a pop-up is encountered let IE decide, and Open links from another program in a new tab in the current window. Click OK to exit.

Now go to the Programs tab and choose Manage add-ons. In the new pane click on Search providers and in the bottom left corner untick Search in the address bar. Now go to each of the search providers shown, right click on them and select Disable. Once done select close.

Up in the address bar area if you do a right click you can choose to have the favorites bar open for your regular sites - middle clicking opens them in new tabs, and if you have typed a new address in the address bar the combination of Alt with Enter opens it in a new tab.

[Aggers]

Crumbs !. I shall have to read that a few times. Frank.

I do use the favourites facility for sites I regularly visit, my problem relates to when I see something new
in a magazine or newspaper and want to access a site I've never visited before.

My Windows 7 instruction book simply says, 'enter the web address in Internet Explorer', but that doesn't do anything.

[Suff]

Aggers,

You have an address bar. It's the bar at the top which displays http://www.vocalvoices.... etc when you are viewing vocalvoices.

I rarely type in a web address unless I don't want the bookmark on my work computer. However I do type www.google.co.uk. It is usually the first and last address you will need.

When in google, or any other search engine, you type what you want and you usually find a link to it. Then you click on the link and if you want to go back there regularly, you can bookmark it.

Long gone are the days when you have to remember the URL (the link in the address bar), for sites.

At home, the rare times I actually have to type in a web address is when I have a business card which is not linked by google...

[Workingman]

Ah, forgot to mention.....

Typing something in the address bar does nothing....

You have to hit the Go arrow >, or hit Enter, or Alt+Enter to open a new tab.

[Aggers]

Thanks Frank and Suff.

I think, on reflection, that I will leave things as they are.

It just amazes me that the clever bods at Microsoft don't provide a
basic facility where one can just type in a website address.
I don't think it's clever to make things so complicated.
The clever thing, I have always found, is to make things easily understood.

Incidently, I don't try to remember website addresses, but sometimes take
them from magazine adverts.

Search engines are useful sometimes, but one can often waste too
much time sorting through lots of useless and irrelevant rubbish.

[Suff]

It just amazes me that the clever bods at Microsoft don't provide a
basic facility where one can just type in a website address.

They did. It's called the address bar. It sits right next to the back/forward buttons and shows the url http:// whatever is the page address.

[Aggers]

In case anyone is interested, I have now found the sort of thingI was
looking for two years ago, namely where to easily type a new web
address on my Windows 7 laptop.

Right click an empty space on the toolbar and from the menu which
then appears click on 'toolbars', and then tick the 'Address' option.
Then you can then type in a website address on your home page as
soon as you start up, without having to go via another site.

[Suff]

Thinking about this Aggers, I realise that you probably want Tabs.

Next to the tab which you are working on is usually a small tab. So mine, right now, says "VocalVoices Post a reply". Next to it is a blue/grey square. click on it and it creates a new tab with a new address bar.

Then you can just type into the new address bar the address you want, or select one of your favourites, whilst still keeping your current window open. I usually run 10 or more tabs concurrently and switch them via the windows task bar cascaded windows.

That might help a bit. What you see in the new tab depends on your new tab configuration. For me I use IE and I have it set to google. When I open a new tab I'm either going to do one of 3 things. Open a shortcut, type in an address I know or search in Google. In each case, for me, the best start place is Google.

You can also open a new tab by pressing Ctrl+T