Browsers that have tabbed browsing

Ever since I downloaded and installed FireFox which have tabbed browsing, it has been my favorite browser. It still is, but I have started using other browsers which also have tabbed browsing. One of them is Opera. I invariably have more than one browsers opened in my computer when I am online for reasons explained in Why you should be using more than one browser. I have used Opera when I need to manage (publish post, edit, etc.) my Google Blogger blogs, but they must have auto upgraded it to a newer version. Now I am unable to sign into my Google Blogger account as explained in Problem signing into Blogger with Opera.

Now I use Flock browser. Flock is a web browser based on FireFox. It is frequently referred to as a "social browser" because it is able to interact with popular social networking web services such as Flickr, Del.icio.us, Technorati, Photobucket, and various popular blogging and news aggregation services. So far, I have had absolutely no problem with Flock.

Let us see how Flock with its tabbed browsing helps with sites like Coupon Chief, which is site that helps online shopper save on online purchases. If we want to keep Coupon Chief homepage opened, but would like to view the page listing all the categories, all we have to do is to right click on the "Categories" tab at the top of the page and select "Open in new tab", and a new tab will open listing all the categories that Coupon Chief have.

Want to look for products according to the stores? Right-click on the "Stores" tab, and another tab showing all the stores that are partnering with Coupon Chief will open without losing the other two. There sure is a very long list of stores there. Unless you are familiar with the store, you probably wouldn't know what the stores are selling, but you may be looking for flowers for your wedding anniversary to present to your loving wife.

No problem, just click the "Browse Coupons by Categories --- Coup.." tab of the Flock browser at the top of the page (under the menu bar) and you will be back to the page listing all the categories. Right-click on the "Flowers and Gifts" link and again select "Open in new tab" and the page listing all the flowers and gifts merchants will open in another separate tab. Slowly chose your pick.

The top of the Flock browser will look like this (click on screenshot to enlarge):



You can go from one tab to the other at will according to what you want to do. Just compare that to inconvenience of the old Internet Explorer 6 and under, which don't have tabbed browsing. It is only after a very long time that Microsoft finally caught up and came up with Internet Explorer 7, which have followed the other browsers and now have tabbed browsing. However, there is still one thing I don't like about Internet Explorer 7. In all the other browsers, when I want a new empty tab, all I have to do is to click "File" in the menu bar and select "New tab" and a new empty tab will open instantly. I do that in Internet Explorer 7, there is a significant pause before I get the new empty tab.

Advantages of tabbed browsing

I love FireFox as it allows me to do tabbed browsing. What is meant by tabbed browsing? Let us take this interesting site Coupon Chief to use as an example. This is a site which helps people shop for things online and save money at the same time using coupons. If you are reading this page, you are most likely to be interested in things connected with the Internet, software and Computers. In the same window I can have pages (tabs) opened in the same window.

For example, I am interested in Computers and Software in the site linked to above, you will find a lists of categories of different products on the left sidebar. Under the "...by Category" section, 7th down the line you will see the category "Computers and Software" at the time of publishing. You can click on "Computers and Software", but it will mean you will lose your current homepage of that site as the new page opens in the same window. However, if you right-click on Computers and Software, a "menu" will appear where you have a choice of



Open Link in New Window
Open Link in New Tab

plus other choices. Chose "Open in a New Tab", and the page listing all the computers and software will appear in a new tab in the same window (second red arrow), and your homepage of "Coupon chief" will remain in the first tab in the same window (first arrow. Click on screenshot to enlarge so you can see the arrows better):



There are other categories listed which is likely to be of interest to those who blog or surf the Internet, like Wireless and Internet. Right-click on that and chose "open in new tab, and the page for "Wireless and Internet" will open in another tab (third red arrow in the screenshot above). I use a wireless modem router and wished I had bought that via Coupon Chief for I may have save some money using their coupon that way.

There is another section "Coupons by Stores", and I see 9 stores listed in that section. You may be interested in a store like Dell Home. Right click on this link or in the link under "Coupons by Store" section, and choose "Open in new tab" and "Coupon Chief - Dell Home" will open in another new tab (third arrow in screenshot above) listing all the Dell products you can purchase and save some money using coupons without losing your other pages.

Or perhaps you will prefer to see a list of all stores where you can save some money using coupons. Right-click on the "Store" tab at the top of the page and chose "Open in a new tab" and a page listing a long list of stores will open in another new tab in the same window.

You can easily navigate to any of the above named pages the same window at any time in by clicking on the tabs highlighted by the red window.

Search website which have no sitesearch box plus Yahoo search, etc

You may often want to search for information on a website which did not provide a site search box, which is not a rare occurrence. In such cases, having FireFox with the Google toolbar will be a great help, for you can use the built-in Google search box to search only that site:

.

I find this very helpful in searching for information. In addition to searching only the site, you can also chose to search the whole web, search for images, search groups, news, Google Map, search for button, search your Gmail Inbox, even add search types such as Yahoo search, CNN, BBC News, Fox News, Yahoo mail, You tube, Google Earth, weather, etc. They will probably add more choices later.

Do not print background color and images of a webpage

You may sometimes want to print a page from the web. This you can do by clicking FILE > PRINT from the menu bar at the top of the browser. Sometimes the webpage has background color. It may also have colorful pictures which you may not want. If you just print the page as it is, you will be wasting a lot of ink, especially if the page you want to print have a black background.

If you want to save on ink, click FILE > PAGE SETUP from the menu bar at the top of the browser and untick the "Print background (colors and images)" option before you press the "OK" button.