Today I want to take it back to basics with terminology and vocabulary that is often used when trying to troubleshoot a computer problem over the phone.

Have you ever called a colleague, friend, or family member to ask how to do something on the computer and they started spewing words like ‘browser,’ ‘window,’ ‘minimize,’ or ‘resize?’ Plenty of times when a computer issue is super simple, the issue isn’t with the user’s ability. It’s a language barrier of sorts.

I can walk you step-by-step on how to resize your browser window so you can multi-task, but if you don’t fully understand what I mean by ‘browser window’ we will never get there.

So first thing is first. Browsers. Wikipedia defines a browser as follows: A web browser (commonly referred to as a browser) is a software application for accessing information on the World Wide Web. 

Okay, let’s break this down further. What is a ‘software application?’ According to Wikipedia: Application software (app for short) is a program or group of programs designed for end users. Examples of an application include a word processor, a spreadsheet, an accounting application, a web browser, an email client, a media player, a file viewer, an aeronautical flight simulator, a console game or a photo editor. 

So, according to these definitions, a web browser is an app! You’re familiar with apps on phones. You might not have realized that computers have apps too! Imagine your phone screen. You see icons that represent the apps you have downloaded. To open one, you simply tap it.

On your computer, apps are the same! They show up on your computer screen as icons of things you have downloaded. To open them on a computer, you use your mouse to click (or double-click) the icon!

Phone apps are just like computer apps. In fact, you might have some of the same apps on your computer as you have on your phone! I use Google Chrome on my computer to surf the web, and I use Google Chrome to surf the web on my phone as well

As you can see in the two photos above, the icon for the Google Chrome app for the computer is the same as the app for the iPhone!

So remember, a web browser on the computer is simply the app you use to surf the web. Some options include Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer.

Now that we know what a web browser is, next let’s talk about browser windows.