How to change your Web browser

If you’re using Windows XP and regularly fire up Internet Explorer to surf the Web, you’ve probably noticed websites load slowly.

In fact, some website functions don’t work at all. And you can’t upgrade to IE 9 or 10 since neither version supports Windows XP.

So what’s the solution? If you’d like to boost your surfing capabilities or simply switch browsers, there are several free, high-quality alternative programs you can download.

Two of the most popular are Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. They’re not only faster than IE 8, but are easy to customize. They also allow you to import your favourite pages or bookmarks.

Even better, both programs install quickly and don’t require restarting your computer. This makes it easier to get and test each one before deciding which you prefer.

This article will focus on changing your browser to Google Chrome. To start, you’ll have the default option to import bookmarks and passwords during installation.

When you open the browser, you’ll also notice there aren’t many features on the toolbar. On the left, there’s a forward, backward and refresh button. The favourites folder will only appear if you imported settings or if you add bookmarks.

On the right, you’ll see a star that’s used to bookmark the current page. There’s also a second button that looks like three parallel lines, which lets you customize and control Chrome.

Unlike many other browsers, it doesn’t have a home page. Instead, you can set the tabs you want to open when Chrome opens by following 7 quick steps:

• Click the Customize button and select Settings.
• Under On startup, select Open a specific page or set of pages.
• Click Set pages.
• Enter the URL of the page you want to open on startup and press the enter key.
• Add more pages if needed.
• You can change the order by dragging your selections up or down.
• Click OK.

You can also use the customize button to alter other settings and for help.

A unique feature of Google Chrome is its PDF viewer. It doesn’t support all Adobe javascripts, however, so you can choose to set Adobe Reader as your default viewer for these files by taking these steps:

• Type chrome://plugins in the Chrome address bar and press the enter key.
• Find Adobe Reader in the list and click enable.
• The plugins feature can be used to control other plugins as well.

It’s worth noting Google Chrome handles downloaded files differently than other browsers. While IE prompts to you browse your hard drive and save the files to a chosen folder, the default for Chrome is to automatically save files to an already-set default folder. To view or change the default folder, follow these steps:

• • Click the Customize button and select Settings.
  • Click Show advanced settings and scroll down to the downloads section.
  • Click the Change button, or select the Ask where to save each file before downloading check box.