Which is the address bar?

example of address bar in Internet Explorer example of address bar in Firefox browser
 
The address bar is where the website address of the page you're currently viewing is displayed. You can also use the address bar to select another website you want to visit. To visit a specific site that you have the website address for, you need to click once inside the address bar and just type in the website address of the webpage you want to visit. If the website address begins with http:// (definition of HTTP) you don't need to type this in, because the internet browsers knows what you mean and will save you the typing. If the website address begins with https:, ftp: or other, then you need to type in the full web page address at the address bar.

 

Address Bar History

If you ever want to find a website address that you have typed into the address bar in the past, you can do this by clicking in the small down arrow at the end of the address bar. The browser will then show you a list of addresses you have previously typed in. You may need to scroll down the list to find the site you want. When you find the site you want, you can just click on the address and the browser will take you there. The figure below shows an example of the address bar history list. The down arrow you need to click on is circled (at the far right of the address bar).

example of displaying the address bar history

Another way you can access sites you have previously visited is to click on the address bar and start typing the first few characters of the site address. As you type in characters, the browser will provide a list of alternatives that it guesses you want to type in. It is clever enough to allow you to not bother typing the "http://www" part of the site address.

If the address bar history list is getting too big (after using the browser for a long time) or if for any other reason you want to clear the address bar history, the browsers give you the option to delete the address bar history.

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