Going to a web page

Tap in the address field and use the onscreen keyboard to enter the web address. Then tap Go on the keyboard.

You can also enter a search term into the same address field and allow the browser to take you to the results of a search engine exploration.

Using browser tabs

To open a second tab within the browser, tap the + Add Tab button.

To close a tab, tap the X Close Tab button alongside the tab to be shut.

Bookmarking a page

To bookmark the currently displayed web page, do this:

1. Tap Bookmarks, and then tap Add.
2. Using the onscreen keyboard, type in a title for the bookmark.
3. Tap Save.

To open a bookmarked web page, tap Bookmarks and then tap an entry.

Saving a web page

To save a web page on your tablet, tap More and then Save Web Page.

Keep these things in mind while browsing:

• If you know the name of the web page you want to go to, just tap the address bar near the top of the page. Then use the onscreen virtual keyboard to enter its name.
• You don’t need to enter http://. Most times you don’t have to enter www., either.
• When you finish typing a web address, tap the Return key at the lower-right corner of the keyboard.
• If the browser correctly predicts what you want to enter, just tap the web address.
• If you swipe a web page up toward the top of the device, the address bar and tabs disappear. To see the address bar again, swipe down.

The Chrome browser has a few more particulars:

• To refresh or reload a web page, tap the curved arrow icon to the left of the address bar.
• To stop a web page from loading — a valuable tool if there’s a hangup — tap the address bar and then tap the X symbol in the address bar. It’s to the left when a page is coming up; when the page comes up, that X is replaced by the refresh icon.
• Anything a mouse can do on a computer, you do with a tap of your finger. “Click” a link by tapping the highlighted text (often marked in blue). Select an item or make a choice from a list by tapping an icon, picture, or word.
• If the web page is too small for you to easily jab at with your finger, zoom in: Place two fingers on the page and spread them apart. This works on most pages.

I’m going to make a reasonable assumption that you understand the basics of a browser. I want to point out Chrome’s advanced, less obvious features.

Start by examining the browser’s menu. Get there by tapping the Menu icon (pointed out in Figure 8-1) in the upper-right corner of any page in Chrome. See Figure 8-2.

Here are some of the choices:

• New Tab. You can open many tabs at once, flitting from website to website. Although after about three tabs, the real screen gets too crowded to easily use. You can also open a new tab by tapping the blank tab above the address bar.
• New Incognito Tab. This new tab section has a bit more privacy than a standard web visit. I explain more later in this chapter.
• Bookmarks. Tap to see favorite pages you’ve noted.

• Recent Tabs. You can revisit web pages on tabs you recently closed. This is generally a good thing for busy users.

  Chrome makes it easy to see websites you’ve visited. Me? I’ve got nothing to hide except for the obvious record of time-wasting distractions that eat away from my ordinarily highly productive writing sessions. Use the Privacy option, which I discuss later in this chapter, to clear the Recent tabs and browsing history.

• History. You can go back in time within the same session or days past. And if you have other devices using the same Google account, you can see their history. The History panel can hold dozens of entries. You can clear your browsing data by tapping the button at the bottom of the History screen, or clear away individual visits by tapping the X beside a particular entry.
• Share. Tell the world, or at least your friends, family, and coworkers, about pages you’ve found. I discuss sharing later in this chapter.
• Print. Tap here to print from your Tab S2 NOOK to most local printers with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth; you have to set up this communication link beforehand.
• Find in Page. Search for a word, name, or phrase within the current web page. As you type, results get more specific. You can’t search for an image, only words.
• Add to Home Screen. You can create a shortcut to a web page, a very useful hyper-bookmark. I discuss this later in this chapter, in the section about bookmarks.
• Request Desktop Site. Websites want to show you their special, reduced mobile versions. Which you may not like. To ask that sites treat your tablet as if it were a desktop, tap to place a checkmark in Request Desktop Site. You might have to reload or re-request the page for this to take effect.

Basic settings

You can set these basic settings:

• Search Engine. The default search engine to look for websites or information on the web is Google’s own www.Google.com. You can, though, ask that the browser automatically use another engine such as Yahoo!, Bing, Ask, or AOL.

  Google has become so popular that it’s almost a generic term. Though Google, Inc. has a squad of lawyers prepared to do battle in defense of their trademark, you’ll still hear people saying they intend to “google Teddy Roosevelt” when what they mean to say is they intend to “use the Google.com search engine to find out more about President Theodore Roosevelt.”

  You don’t have to change search engines if you just want to try another one from time to time. Just go to Chrome and, in the address bar, type the site: yahoo.com, bing.com, ask.com, and so on.

• Autofill Forms. This feature automatically fills in certain types of form information, such as your name, address, and telephone number. In a separate category, it automatically fills in a preferred credit card (including your name, card number, and expiration date). You can fill in one or the other or both fields, and there’s also an on-off switch to enable or disable autofill.

  My preference is to include the name and address information only, and leave blank the credit card data; it seems to me too big of a risk to have the card poised to jump into place on a screen all by itself.

• Save Passwords. Here you can save logins and passwords for websites. This feature has an on-off switch at the top of the form, and then you can touch any individual saved entry to edit or delete it. You’ll also find a listing called Never Saved, and here you see websites that asked whether you want to have login information saved, but where you told the browser not to do so.

  My preference for Save Passwords is to save only those websites I don’t consider a risk to my personal information or finances. For example, I do keep passwords for things like certain news sites and shopping sites where I do not store credit card numbers. And I maintain a whole separate set of passwords for sites that hold information I want to keep from prying eyes.

• Home Page. Here you can select a particular page as the one your browser will display each time it loads; mine is The New York Times. There’s also an on-off switch to enable or disable this feature as needed.

Advanced settings

You can set these advanced settings:

• Privacy. Here you find a valuable collection of features that can reduce the possibility of snoops learning about places you have visited.
• Navigation Error Suggestions. Place a checkmark in the box to show suggestions anytime the web address you have entered in the browser doesn’t work or a connection can’t otherwise be made.
• Search and URL Suggestions. Put a checkmark to enable a prediction service that shows related queries and popular websites that sometimes — not always — guesses what you’re looking for. If you don’t see what you want, keep typing in the search bar until you do.
• Touch to Search. On some websites and in certain situations, when you touch a word, your tablet (when connected to Wi-Fi) uses Google Search to provide a definition, picture, or other information without leaving the current web page. You can turn this feature on or off.

• Prefetch Page Resources. Your tablet can try and be one step ahead of you as you read a website, requesting and temporarily storing links and information you just might tap next. For example, if you’re looking at an online retailer and reading the description of a new camera, the browser might note that there are two big buttons nearby: Specifications and More Pictures. Chrome might preload one or both pages into the tablet’s memory. If it guessed correctly, you might save a few seconds of your invaluable time.

  Most users find both preloading and bandwidth management worthwhile. However, if your tablet slows down or certain pages don’t display properly or at all, try turning off Preload Webpages or Bandwidth Management (or both) to see if that solves the problem.

• Usage and Crash Reports. Some Internet providers and hardware makers (including Samsung) are interested in knowing about usage statistics and crash reports; the information collected here is supposed to be used to improve apps and other software and your personal data is supposed to be not collected. You can choose to enable or disable this feature.
• Do Not Track. Enabling this feature means that as you visit each web page, your request to view information includes a request that your visit isn’t tracked or recorded. It’s a nice idea, but you have no certainty that web pages you visit will honor this request.

• Clear Browsing Data. This may be the most important option for privacy. Options on this screen allow you to remove, from your tablet’s memory, any or all of the following: your browsing history, any data held in the tablet’s short-term cache memory, cookies and site data placed on your phone by certain websites to track your visit, saved passwords, and autofill data. Tap to place a checkmark and turn on an option, and tap Clear to wipe them away from the tablet.

  Clearing browsing data doesn’t remove any records maintained by websites you have visited. In most situations, a website can determine the unique address on the Internet of your tablet or its Wi-Fi access point, and may also keep track of any information you have chosen to provide.

Accepting or declining cookies

I mention cookies a bit earlier, which some websites leave behind on your system. Some may be perfectly benign, like a reminder of the last page you visited on a complex site. Others may be not so innocent, like an attempt by an advertiser or other entity to track your movement around the web.

In theory, the cookies are anonymous. Your tablet is just a number to the cookie-dropper. However, if the cookie comes from a site that requires you to sign in, well then you’re not all that anonymous after all.

You can tell Chrome (and most other browsers) that you don’t want to allow cookies. The bad news is that some websites won’t allow you to get very deep into their content without being able to leave cookies behind.

In Chrome you have two options for cookies:

• The first is an on-off switch that enables or disables the ability of sites to save and read cookie data. You can choose to turn off this feature, but some pages refuse to allow access — or at least raise an electronic ruckus if you try to visit without permitting cookies.
• The second option allows third-party websites to save and read cookie data. In theory, this means that an advertiser or a web provider could look at the cookies on your tablet. You can try disabling this feature by removing the checkmark, but you may run into the same problem as the general cookie blocker: Websites you visit may turn you away.

It’s your decision. I allow cookies, but also regularly (usually daily, sometimes more frequently) clear them away. Sometimes I tell the browser not to accept cookies and wait to see which websites object; if they do, I consider whether this site has a legitimate reason to put a note within my tablet or computer.

Location settings

If you want to enjoy your tablet’s ability to help find the nearest gas station or helium balloon-refilling station, you have to allow the browser to provide information to sites about where you are.

Your tablet has a GPS that can pinpoint your location to a few tens of yards in proper conditions; in addition to that, search engines are usually able to figure out your approximate location based on where your Wi-Fi router connects to the Internet.

Is this an invasion of your privacy? It probably is, but there’s not much you can do to avoid it except not use a tablet or a smartphone or a telephone; I think the more important thing to concentrate on is working to limit the amount of other information you divulge to outsiders.

One other note: This is one of many features that uses battery power and data. To maximize the time between recharges of your battery, you might want to turn off location sensing and the GPS module until and unless you need them.

The other issue, the amount of data consumed, isn’t usually a problem with Wi-Fi connections, but if your tablet is connected to a smartphone in certain circumstances, this could result in an unexpected data charge, especially when you’re roaming away from your home region.

Camera

Some websites may seek to turn on your tablet’s camera (for example, to scan a bar code). That may be a very valuable feature to you, but you should also consider the possibility — however remote — that some malicious programmer may try to spy on you by turning on your tablet’s camera without your knowledge.

You might want to use the camera setting called Ask First, which blocks remote control of your camera without your permission.

Microphone

Just as with the camera, there are certain situations where a website might want to turn on the microphone on your tablet for things like voice recognition, dictation, or voice memos. Once again, some people worry that evildoers will try to listen in on their lives through the microphone. For that reason, consider using the setting Ask First.

Enabling or disabling JavaScript

JavaScript is a programming language that animates or customizes web pages. You can remove the checkmark from the Enable JavaScript setting if you’d like. Some websites won’t run properly, or you may never notice the difference.

In the past, JavaScript has been accused of causing problems on its own, or allowing itself to be hijacked by hackers seeking to implant viruses or steal information or otherwise foul the swimming pool. That’s less common today, and in any case a tablet running Android is, to some extent, less vulnerable to this sort of attack than is a desktop or laptop computer.

Block pop-ups

Among the many annoyances used by advertisers to make a buck off innocent Internet users is a pop-up ad. It might appear in front of a news article that you want to read or block an entertainment page.

Once again, there’s a potential downside: Some websites may not run right if you block pop-ups, and some pop-ups blast right through this protection anyway. I generally leave on the pop-up blocking and hope for the best.

Some websites ask permission to be placed on a list of exceptions to pop-up blocking, which is a polite thing to do. If a site you visit regularly insists on pop-ups, and you want to grant it permission, allow it to add its address to the exceptions.

Protected content

This setting is generally benign and may not apply to you. When you allow Chrome to use the Protected Content setting, the site authenticates your device to confirm that it’s allowed to display certain content (like music or videos). These providers place a special type of cookie, called a device credential, on your tablet or computer.

Other content settings

You can turn off Google Translate, which decodes foreign language websites for you, and also examine website settings, which are yet another form of cookies. If you see a site here that you don’t expect to revisit or don’t want visiting you, tap its name and then tap Clear Stored Data.