Galaxy S II: The Missing Manual

Chapter 9. The Web

ONCE YOU’VE USED YOUR Samsung Galaxy S II to skim movie reviews on your way to the theater, check out an online menu before you choose a restaurant, or find a newspaper to read on the train, you may wonder how you ever got along without having the Web in the palm of your hand. The screen may be smaller than your desktop display, but it’s big enough and clear enough to give you a satisfying Web experience wherever you go. With more and more web designers making their sites look good and work well on mobile devices like the Galaxy S II, you may find yourself using the Browser more than any other app.

The Galaxy S II’s Browser

TO ACCESS THE WEB, tap the Browser icon on a pane or in the Apps Tray.

Android’s browser has plenty of goodies, much like those in a computer browser, including bookmarks, AutoComplete for web addresses, cookies, password memorization, the ability to save and share pages, shortcuts, the ability to select and copy text…just about the whole nine yards. However, the browser itself is fairly bare bones, and its simplicity can at first be off-putting. But once you know your way around a bit, you’ll be browsing at warp speed. Here are the four main controls you need to know about:

• Address bar. Here’s where you enter the URL—the web address—for a page you ...