+Chapter 18

Internet Tools

This chapter introduces the reader to different Internet tools and how
these are used for different purposes such as browsing, searching and
sending and receiving e-mails. The chapter mainly focuses on the
browsing and searching the internet and using it for sending and
receiving e-mails. The web browser tool is discussed with its functions and
how it helps in quick searching. An important searching tool–search
engine is discussed along with its working. The second part of the chapter
discusses e-mail client to send and receive e-mails offline. The latter part
of the chapter describes the messenger, which is used for sending instant
messages from one computer to another.

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

After reading this chapter, you will be able to understand:

  The Internet tools, which are versatile tools that enable a user to
collect information and interact with people across the world
 Web browser—a software application, which provides the user an
interface to navigate the Internet
 How to browse the Internet using Internet explorer
 The e-mail client, which is used to send and receive e-mails over the
Internet
 Various search engines used to access information on topics desired
by the user
 Instant messaging—a web-based service used to exchange messages
in real time between two or more people over the Internet

18.1 INTRODUCTION

In recent years, Internet has become one of the most popular means of
communication. Whether one wants to know about computers, literature,
commerce, or other such subject matters, Internet is probably the best
solution that provides all kinds of information at a single place. We have
discussed some of the most important terms related to Internet in the
previous chapter, such as e-mail, browsing, instant messaging, etc. Now let
us study those concepts from a practical perspective. This chapter focuses
on various Internet tools like browser, e-mail client, and messenger. All
these versatile tools enable the user to collect information and interact with
people across the world.

A web browser is the most essential tool for accessing the Internet. Through
a browser, one can browse, search, and collect information from the Web. It
is also used to send and receive e-mails in online mode. If users want to
manage their e-mails offline, they can use an e-mail client, which is
specially designed for the purpose of sending and receiving messages
without the need to be online. Apart from these tools, many websites
provide a special application known as the instant messenger which
permits users to send and receive instant messages, transfer files, conduct
audio/visual chatting, listen to Internet radio stations, and many such
useful services.

18.2 WEB BROWSER

A web browser (or simply browser) is a software application, which
provides a graphical user interface (GUI) so that the user can navigate the
Internet easily by clicking on menus, icons, or buttons instead of learning
difficult keyboard commands. A web browser uses the HTTP protocol to
request web pages from the web server. These pages contain special
instructions (written in HTML) that tell the browser how to display the web
contents on the user's screen. The instructions may include hyperlinks to
other web pages, information about text formatting and colour, position
information for images contained in the document, and other such things.
Most browsers natively support a variety of formats in addition to HTML,
such as the JPEG, PNG, and GIF image formats, and can be extended to
support more through the use of plug-ins (an add-on piece of software that
extends the features or functionality of a larger application). The two most
popular web browsers are Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet
Explorer.

18.2.1 Web Browser Features

There are many web browsers available having different features. However,
every browser shares some of the basic features mentioned below:

 A browser handles requests for HTML files, interprets links, and deals with
embedded images, audio, and video elements.
 A browser keeps the history of the websites visited.
 A browser lets a user to save a collection of pages, allowing for later retrieval.
 A browser provides a row of buttons at the top of the browser window for
browsing the Internet conveniently.
 A browser connects to an e-mail program for importing favourites/bookmarks
and sending and receiving e-mails from the most commonly used applications
and formats.
 A browser supports web standards currently in use such as HTML, HTTP,
JavaScript, and Unicode.
 A browser supports multimedia data in three ways.

 Native Support: A browser supports some of the image

formats natively. In other words, a browser presents the
image as a part of the web page in the browser window.
 Plug-ins: A plug-in is a program that adds functions to the
web browser, such as an audio player or a compression
utility. A plug-in is a set-up within the browser through
which it functions properly and correctly.
  Helper Programs: Helper programs are external
applications launched by a web browser or Internet client
program to view non-native file formats and data types.
These programs are not integrated with the browser.
Note: In this book, we have used Internet Explorer 8.0 (IE 8.0) for
explaining web browser concepts Internet Explorer 8.0 is freely
available from Microsoft website (http://www.microsoft.com). It is
also bundled with the Windows 7 operating system.

18.2.2 Opening Internet Explorer

To open Internet Explorer, perform any one of the following steps:

 Double-click the Internet Explorer icon located on the desktop.

 Click the Internet Explorer icon from Quick Launch.
 Click Start and select Internet Explorer.
 Click Start, select All Programs, and then select Internet Explorer (Figure
18.1).

Figure 18.1 Opening Internet Explorer

 18.2.3 Internet Explorer Environment

When Internet Explorer is opened, the main screen of the Internet Explorer
is displayed. This main window has many parts, which are described in
detail below (Figure 18.2).

Figure 18.2 Main Internet Explorer Browser Window

Title Bar: The title bar is located at the very top of the window and tells
you the title of the page you are viewing. The title bar also tells you which
Internet Explorer application is currently active. In addition, like all other
Microsoft applications, it has the Minimize, Restore/Maximize,
and Close buttons.

Tabs:    Internet Explorer 8 allows opening multiple tabs in a single

browser window with each tab displaying a web page. You can switch
between the tabs to view web page of your choice by clicking on the
respective tab. Tabbed browsing helps reducing the number of items in the
taskbar. To open a new tab either click the New Tab button or
press CTRL+T.

Back and Forward Buttons:    The Back button allows the user to move

to the most recently displayed web page. On the other hand, the Forward
button allows moving to the page the user most recently has moved back
from. This way the user can navigate through the most recently viewed
websites easily.

Address Bar:    The Address bar displays the Internet address (URL) of

the page currently being displayed. You can access a site by typing its URL
into the address box and pressing Enter (pressing ALT+Enter opens the
web page in a new tab). In addition, you can search the Web by
typing Find, Go, or ? followed by the keywords, phrase, or website name in
the Address bar and pressing Enter. The Address bar uses the default
search provider for searching.

Refresh Button:    The Refresh button reloads the current document that

the user is viewing. Reloading the current page is useful when the page is
updating very frequently as the user can view these changes as soon as they
are available.

Stop Button:    The Stop button stops the operation that is currently being

performed by the Internet Explorer. For example, if it is pressed before a
page has finished loading, the page will display only those elements that
had been loaded before the button was pressed.

Search Box:    The search box is used to search the Web. Simply type the
keyword or phrase that you want to search and then press Enter to open
the search result in the same tab or ALT+Enter to open the result in a new
tab. To go to the search box, you can either click in the search box or
press CTRL+E.

Menu Bar:    The menu bar has many different sub-menus, which control

all options, functions, and commands for the entire Internet Explorer.
Some of the browsing controls can also be found in these sub-menus. Each
command in the menu bar represents a menu and is activated by
pressing ALT+ the underlined letter of the menu from the keyboard.
Different menus include File, Edit, View, and so on.
Favorites Bar:    The Favorite bar replaces the Links toolbar available in
previous versions of the Internet Explorer. Like Links toolbar, it enables
you to keep the links of your favourite websites so that they can be accessed
with just a click. Now, you not only can drag links from the address bar, but
also from web pages you are viewing. In addition, the Favorites bar can
hosts RSS feeds and Web slices. Web slice is a new feature that lets you
notice about updates to the contents on your favourite websites.

Command Bar:    The Command bar hosts many buttons that are used to

perform frequently used actions. Buttons that appear on the command bar
are Home button, Read Mail button, Print button, Help button,etc. You
can customize the command bar to add or remove buttons from it.

Content Area:    The content area is the portion of window that holds the
web page present in the current tab. Text, images, animation, and links
available on the web page appear in this area. It is quite common that a web
page is too large to fit in the browser window at once. In such situation,
scroll bars located on the right or bottom of the window are used to view
the page's area that is beyond the window region.

Status Bar:    The Status bar displays the current state of activity on the

web page. The information that appears on the status bar includes the item
currently being downloaded, the current web page's download progress,
error (if any) in downloading, and zoom level of web page.

18.3 BROWSING INTERNET USING INTERNET EXPLORER

Browsing is an act of looking for information on the Internet by repeatedly

going through several web pages usually with the help of hyperlinks. It is
also known as navigating or surfing the Web. Browsing the Internet is the
same as walking through a shop with an intention to purchase something or
just for fun. Let us consider an example to illustrate how to browse
Internet.

Opening and Navigating a Website:    In the Address bar, enter the

website's address (URL) and press Enter to open the website. When the
website opens, its home page is displayed. Since most web pages contain
more information than can be displayed in one window, you need to know
to move through a page to view all the information. Some common
methods that can be used are as follows:
  Use the vertical or horizontal scroll bars to move around or through a
document.
 Press the Up and Down arrow keys to move up or down one line. Pressing the
Page Up (or PgUp) key moves up one window length and pressing Page
Down (or PgDn) moves down one window length.
Pressing Ctrl+Home takes you to the beginning of the document and
pressing Ctrl+End takes you to its end.

Usually a web page contains many hyperlinks, in the form of both text and
images. You can always tell when the mouse pointer is over a hyperlink
because it will change to hand with a pointing index finger ( ). To open a
hyperlink, simply click on it and the related web page opens in the same
window of the Internet Explorer. You can also open a hyperlink by right-
clicking it and selecting the Open option from the short-cut menu. In
addition, you can select the Open in New Tab or Open in New
Window option from the short-cut menu (see Figure 18.3) to open the link
in a new tab or a new window, respectively.

Figure 18.3 Web Page in Internet Explorer

If you have browsed through several pages in a window, you can move
backward and forward by clicking the Back and Forward button at the
top of Internet Explorer. You can go back or forward one page at a time or
you can select from a list of pages. To do this, click the down arrow ( )
beside the Forward button and click on any site from the list of visited sites
(see Figure 18.4).

Figure 18.4 Moving Backward and Forward

Saving Text and Images: If you wish to save any text from the Internet,
first select the text on the web page. After selecting the desired text, right-
click it to open a pop-up menu, which contains options like Cut, Copy,
Paste, Select All, and Print. Note that, often the Cut and Paste options
are inactive to prevent users from deleting the important data from the
website. Once you copy the text from a web page, you can paste it in any
text-editing software like the Notepad or WordPad (Figure 18.5).

 
 

Figure 18.5 Copying Text

You often come across pictures on the Web that you would like to save,
print, e-mail to others, or save them as wallpapers. To perform these
activities, right-click the image and select the Save Picture As option. This
will display the Save Picture As dialog box where you can select the
location and enter a name for the picture.

In case you want to save the entire web page for future reference, click on
the File menu and select the Save As option to display the Save Webpage
dialog box. Now choose where you want the file to be saved, under what
name, and in what format and then click the Save button (Figure 18.6).

 
Figure 18.6 Saving an Image

Downloading Files from Links: Many web pages have links to files

(like .ZIP or .EXE files) that are not natively displayed in the Internet
Explorer content area. Such files have to be copied on the hard disk so that
the user can use them. To save such files, click on the link. Internet
Explorer will ask you whether to save the file to the hard disk. If you intend
to save the file then click the Save button to display the Save As dialog box
so that you can provide the location on the hard disk to save the file.
Another way of saving a file is to right-click the link and selecting the Save
Target As option from the short-cut menu. Again, the Save As dialog box
will appear where you can name the file and provide the location to where it
will be downloaded (Figure 18.7).

Figure 18.7 Downloading a File

Add to Favorites: Internet Explorer uses a feature called Favorites to put

websites, one visits often,within easy reach. That way, a website can be
opened simply by a click without the user having to remember or type
anything. It is similar to a bookmark in a book. It lets users find their place
without checking the table of contents or the index or having to write down
the page number. To learn how to use Favorites, follow the steps given
below:
 1. Go to the web page that you want to add to your Favorites.
2. On the Favorites menu, click Add to Favorites.
3. In the Add a Favorite dialog box, type a new name for the page if you want, and
click OK (Figure 18.8).

Figure 18.8 Add Favorite Dialog Box

Once a website is added to the Favorites list, simply click the link to the web
page you want to visit (Figure 18.9).

Figure 18.9 Favorite Menu

18.4 ELECTRONIC MAIL (E-MAIL)

The Internet was developed mainly to communicate and interchange

knowledge irrespective of the distance limitation. Hence, from the very
beginning, users used Internet primarily for sending and receiving
messages. Even today, communicating through the Internet is the main
application of the Internet. Since these messages are communicated
electronically, they are known as electronic mail or e-mail. Thus, electronic
mail can be defined as the process of exchanging messages electronically,
via a communications network, using the computer. E-mails allow users to
communicate with each other in less time and at nominal cost as compared
to traditional telephone or mail services. Apart from a textual message, e-
mails can also consist of other data formats such as pictures, sound, and
video. E-mails can be sent anywhere in the world using your computer and
a modem. Its delivery is almost instant and is very economical to use
especially for international messages, costing only the price of the
telephone connection to the Internet service provider (ISP). You may send
many messages at one time or just one to a designated location.

18.4.1 E-mail Address Structure

In order to use e-mail, one must have access to the Internet and an e-mail
account. An e-mail account is a service that allows the user to send and
receive e-mails through the Internet. Usually, e-mail accounts are provided
as part of ISP's monthly packages. One can also obtain free e-mail accounts
such as Yahoo and Hotmail on the Web. An e-mail account provides a
unique e-mail address and a mailbox where the user can save all his/her
mails.

Generally, there are two parts of an e-mail address: the logon identity and

the identity of the e-mail server. These are separated by the symbol @
(pronounced as at the rate). For example, a typical e-mail address would
look like:

The first part of the address indicates the identifiable name of the user. It is
just like a home address (and it is unique) so that the mails could be sent to
that address. The user name is a name, which was assigned to or desired by
the user, while signing up for e-mail address. For
example, [email protected]. The @ symbol in the address is used to
separate the user name from the rest of the address. Next comes the host
name (itlesl), also called the domain name. This refers to the mail server,
the computer where the recipient has an electronic mailbox. It is usually the
name of a company or an organization. The end of the domain name
consists of a dot (.) followed by three or more letters (such as .com or .net).
This part of the domain name indicates the type of organization or the
country where the host server is located. Note that you may find variations
in e-mail addresses, but these common elements will always remain the
same.

Note: There are no spaces in an e-mail address and it is usually (but

not always) in lower-case letters.

18.4.2 Checking E-mails

To send and receive e-mails, the user must have an e-mail account. In case,
you do not have a mail account, you must sign up with e-mail provider. Let
us assume that we have an e-mail account. Now, follow the steps given
below to check mails.

1. Open Internet Explorer and type www.yahoo.com into the address bar and

press the Enter key to display Yahoo's home page. Now click the Yahoo
Mail link under MY FAVORITES section as shown in Figure 18.10.
 

 
Figure 18.10 Home Page of Yahoo

 
2. When the Yahoo Mail link is clicked, Yahoo loads a new web page, which
allows users to log on to their mail accounts. To log in, you have to enter your
username (e-mail address) and the password. After entering the information,
either press the Enter key or click the Sign In button (Figure 18.11).
 

 
Figure 18.11 Login Page

 
3. To check for new e-mail(s), click the Inbox link. The screen would look as
shown in Figure 18.12.
 
  
Figure 18.12 Inbox Page

 
4. To read e-mail, simply click on the subject of the e-mail. The screen would look
as shown in Figure 18.13.
 

 
Figure 18.13 Reading E-mail

 
5. After reading the mail, you can reply to the mail or forward the same mail to
other persons by clicking the Reply or Forward button, respectively. In case,
you do not want to keep the mail in the mailbox, click the Delete button to
delete it.

18.4.3 Sending E-mails

One of the important functions of an e-mail service is to provide a platform

to send e-mails. A user can reply to the received e-mail or send a new e-
mail. To send an e-mail, follow the steps given below.

1. Click on the New button so that you can create and send e-mail to the desired
address. When the New button is clicked, the Compose Mail page will be
displayed as shown in Figure 18.14.
 
  
Figure 18.14 Compose Mail Page

 
The key elements of the Compose Mail page are listed below:
1. To: It denotes to whom the mail is to be sent. The user has
to write the recipient's e-mail address.
2. Cc: Cc or Carbon copy is used to specify the addresses of all
the recipients who will also receive copies of the same mail.
It is used to send the same message to several people (all
the addresses are separated with commas).
3. Bcc: Bcc or Blind carbon copy is used to send message to
several addresses without showing everyone all the
addresses.
4. Subject: It denotes the subject of the message as specified
by the sender.
5. Attach Files: Clicking this button opens another page
where user can attach files (created with programs like MS-
Word or Zip files) that are to be sent with the e-mail.

2. Now write the desired contents in the text area and click the Send button.

18.4.4 E-mail Attachments

Earlier we discussed how to send and receive e-mails that involve only text
message. However, sometimes one needs to send or receive files like
compressed (.ZIP) files or any executable (.EXE) files. Since Internet
Explorer does not natively support these files, you will have to “attach”
them in your e-mails.
Receiving and sending attachment is similar to receiving and sending
normal mails, with some extra steps. To view an e-mail containing an
attached file, follow the steps given below:

1. When you open an e-mail that contains an attachment, it will be displayed as

an icon as shown in Figure 18.15.
 

 
Figure 18.15 Attachment

 
2. Click on the file icon. As you click, the file will be scanned for viruses and the
scan report is shown to you below the file icon.
3. Finally to download the file, click the Download File link, which displays the
File Download dialog box. Click Save or Open button to save or open the file,
respectively. If you click Save, the Save As dialog box appears, which prompts
you to save the attached file onto your hard disk.

Note: Always scan the attached file(s) for viruses. In addition, it is a

good practise to avoid unsolicited attachments because they may
contain virus.

To send an attachment with the mail, follow the steps given below:

1. When you compose a mail, click the Attach Files button (Figure 18.14), which
will display the page as shown in Figure 18.16.
 
  
Figure 18.16 Attach Files Page

 
2. Click on the Browse button to display the Choose File to Upload dialog box,
which allows you to select the desired file to be sent as an attachment. Repeat
this process to attach multiple files.
3. Click on the Attach Files button to attach the file(s) to your message and
return to the Compose Mail page, which will now display all the attached file's
names over the Attach More button (Figure 18.17).
 

 
Figure 18.17 Sending E-mail with an Attachment

 
4. Finally, write the desired contents in the text area and click the Send button to
send the mail along with the attachments.

18.4.5 How E-mail Works

To send e-mail, one needs a connection to the Internet and access to a mail
server, which forwards the mail. The standard protocol used for sending e-
mail is called SMTP (simple mail transfer protocol). It works in
conjunction with POP (post office protocol) and IMAP (Internet mail
access protocol) servers.

When an e-mail is sent to a person, who has an e-mail address

like [email protected], it is broken down into two parts: xyz (the
recipient's account name) and hisdomain.com (the recipient's domain
name). The SMTP server contacts a DNS (domain name service) server and
asks for the location of hisdomain.com. The DNS server sends the address
back to the SMTP server. The SMTP server then sends the e-mail message
to the SMTP server where hisdomain. com is located. This SMTP server
delivers the e-mail message to xyz's account on the POP or IMAP server.
Finally, when xyz logs on to his computer and opens his e-mail client, his e-
mail client requests the POP or IMAP server to send all mails from the
account to his computer. Note that if you are sending mail to someone
whose account resides on the same mail servers, the SMTP server will
simply direct the mail to the local POP or IMAP server, where it will be
delivered to the appropriate account (Figure 18.18).

 
 

Figure 18.18 Working of E-Mail System

18.4.7 Advantages and Disadvantages of E-mail

E-mail can be sent anywhere in the world to anyone who has an e-mail
address. It can take days to send a letter across the country and weeks to go
around the world. To save time and money, more and more people are
using e-mail. However, the slightest error in the address can deliver the
mail to the wrong address. Hence, like there are two faces of a coin, e-mail
also comes with its own share of benefits and limitations (Table 18.1).

Table 18.1 Advantages and Disadvantages of E-mail

Advantages Disadvantages

 The delivery of messages is  Although e-mail is delivered instantly, the

very fast, sometimes almost recipient may or may not read his/her
instantaneous, even though mail on time. That defeats the quickness
the message is meant for of electronic mailing
overseas or just to a friend
next door

 The cost of e-mailing is  The user must stay online to read and
almost free as it involves write more than one mail. In addition,
negligible amount of most webmail either display
telephone and ISP charges. advertisements during use or append
them to mails sent. It results in increased
size of the original mail, which brings a
significant decrease in speed of use

 Multiple copies of the same  Since e-mail passes through a network, it

message can be sent to a may be intercepted in between
group of people at the same
time and can be sent as
 Advantages Disadvantages

easily to a single person

 Pictures, documents, and  The slightest error in the address or a

other files can also be failure in one of the links between sender
attached to messages and receiver is enough to prevent a
delivery

18.6 SEARCH ENGINES

The Internet provides access to a wealth of information on countless topics
contributed by people throughout the world. However, the Internet is not a
library in which all its available items are identified and can be retrieved by
a single catalogue. In fact, no one knows how many individual files (could
be in billions) reside on the Internet. Hence, to conduct a search on the
Internet, a special search tool known as search engines is used. Search
engine searches a database of Internet files collected by a computer
program called a wanderer, crawler, or spider. It allows the user to enter
keywords relating to particular topics and retrieve information about the
Internet sites containing those keywords. As such, a search engine consists
of four components:

1. Spider: Program that traverses the Web from link to link, identifying and
reading pages.
2. Indexing Software: Program that analyses web pages that are downloaded
by spiders.
3. Database: Warehouse of the web pages downloaded and processed.
4. Search Engine Mechanism: Software that enables users to query the index
and that usually returns results in term relevancy ranked order (Figure 18.36).

 
 

Figure 18.36 Working of a Search Engine

A search engine does not really search the Web directly. To find
information on the millions of web pages, a search engine employs special
software, called spiders. After spiders find pages, they pass them on to
another computer program for indexing. This program identifies the text,
links, and other content in the page and stores it in the search engine
database's files so that the database can be searched by keyword. Note that
creating index and updating search database is a never-ending process
because of the constantly changing nature of the Web. As a result, the
spiders are always “crawling.”

When users search the Web using a search engine, they are provided with
the links of all the searched web pages. On clicking on the links provided in
a search engine's search results, the current versions of the web pages are
retrieved from the server.
 18.6.1 Searching the Internet

With most search engines, you fill out a form with your search terms and
then ask the search engine to find web pages relevant to the search terms.
Some of the well-known search engines
are www.google.com, www.hotbot.com, www.lycos.com,
and www.altavista.com.

Let us assume that you want to search the Web to get information
regarding computer generations. To do this, first open the search engine's
website (such as www.google.com). Now type your keyword(s) in the
search box and click the Google Search button or press Enter (Figure
18.37).

Figure 18.37 Google Search Engine

The engine searches its index and generates a page with links to those
resources containing some or all of the search terms. Clicking on any link
opens a website or web page in which the searched keyword appears
(Figure 18.38).

 
 

Figure 18.38 Search Result Page

18.6.2 Refining the Search

The major search engines allow the user to choose whether to search for the
exact typed phrase, all the words in the phrase, any of the words in a
phrase, and so on. However, a few search engines do not provide such
options. In this case, the user Figure 18.38 Search Result Page can refine
the search by adding one or more words or symbols to the search topic.

 AND: It is used to search for two or more terms on the same page. Type the
word AND between the terms (for example, poverty AND crime) or put a plus
sign right before the second term (example: poverty+crime).
 OR: It is used to search for either of two (or more) terms on the same page.
Type the word OR between the terms (for example, college OR university).
 NOT: It is used to search for pages that include the first term but not the
second. Type the words NOT between the terms (for example, cats NOT dogs)
or put a minus sign right before the second term (for example, cats-dogs).
 “ ”: Double quotes are used to search for an exact phrase. For example,
“desktop wallpapers.”
 ( ): Parentheses are used to group parts of the search phrase. For example, type
desktop AND (themes OR wallpapers). This returns pages with the words
desktop and themes or both the words themes and wallpapers.
 *: Asterisk is used to search for various forms of a word. For example, prior*
returns pages with the words prior, prioritize, priority, and so on.

18.7 INSTANT MESSAGING

Instant messaging is a web-based service to exchange messages in real time
between two or more people over the Internet. It is a combination of e-mail
and chat room. For sending instant messages, users create a list of users
with whom they wish to communicate. The messages sent through this
service take less time and the delivery of messages is instantaneous.
However, to send and receive instant messages, Internet connection along
with instant messaging software (known as instant messengers), such
as Yahoo Messenger or MSN Messenger, is required. Instant messenger is
one of the most popular Internet tools, which allows the users to
communicate over the Internet through voice, live pictures, or text. It is free
and faster than e-mail because instant messages can be sent to friends
whether they are online or offline. It allows the users to carry multiple
conversations at a time.

Usually, users send their messages in text format. However, while sending
instant messages, a user can also communicate through webcam (video
chatting) as well as through speakers and microphone (voice chatting). In
addition, one can send audio or video files along with instant messages. The
recipients can view the received files at that particular time or later as
desired by them.

18.7.1 Features of Messenger

A messenger is installed on the user's computer and it facilitates sending

and receiving instant messages, graphical symbols, audio, and visual
information. The features of messenger that make it a favourite among
Internet users include:

 Chatting: With a messenger, one can chat using a webcam or microphone and
send textual messages. In addition, users can find and meet people instantly.
 Audibles: Audibles are faces used to say something or express the attitude of
the user in the form of greetings, games, and fun. These audibles are used for
sending verbal animations directly from the instant messaging application.
 Emoticons/Smileys: The emoticons or smileys are used to express the
feelings in the form of little symbols and smiling faces.
 Games: When connected online, users can play multi-player games such as
chess, checkers, and many more. Users can even see how they stack up against
their friends by comparing their scores.
 Address Book: Messengers also provide address books so that users can
easily find and manage their friend's contact details.