A web browser is an application that allows you to view World Wide Web pages, the graphical portion of the Internet. There are many different browsers available with the most popular being Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. Because of this fact most sites are designed with these two browsers in mind. You can download the latest version of Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator free at each company's website. If you are unsure which browser you are using you can use our browser checking script to verify what your current browser and version is. Also note that there are slight differences between Windows and Macintosh versions of browsers.

You can make the State of Illinois Home Page your default home page in both Explorer and Navigator.

If you are using Internet Explorer go to the Tools menu then select Internet Options and under the General tab type http://www.state.il.us/ in the address line.

If you are using Netscape go to the Edit menu, and select Preferences. In the Home page section, type http://www.state.il.us/ in the box.

Your cache stores recently downloaded internet files locally for faster viewing. From time to time you may need to clear your cache to either clear disk space or to allow you to view the most recent versions available.

To clear your cache in Internet Explorer you would go to the Tools menu then select Internet Options and under the General tab you would click on the button Delete Files under the Temporary Internet files heading.

With Navigator, go to the Edit menu, and then select Preferences. From the menu on the left you would click on advanced and then cache. Once you were at the cache window you would click the buttons Clear Memory Cache and Clear Disk Cache.

The Problem
By default, AOL compresses .jpg images (the most common format for high color images such as photos) to the .art format. This can cause pages to display badly because the compression to .art format greatly reduces the quality of images and sometimes will distort them.

The Solution
Here are the steps to take if you would like to turn off the AOL image compression. This will allow you to view .jpg images in their native format. The steps are outlined for 4.0 version browsers, but should be very similar for 5.x and 6.x browsers as well.

1. Click "My AOL" on the icon bar across the top of the window. Select "Preferences".

2. When the "Preferences" window opens, click the "WWW" icon. In the Internet Properties window that comes up, select the "Web Graphics" tab and uncheck the "Use Compressed Graphics" box. Click the "Apply" button at the bottom right of the window and click "OK" to close the window.

3. In the "Preferences" window again, click the "Graphics" icon. Change the "JPEG Compression quality:" to 0. Click "OK" to close the window.

Now you should empty the browser cache so it will not load any previously viewed .art images. Just follow the four steps below.

Now you should empty the browser cache so it will not load any previously viewed .art images. Just follow the four steps below.

1. Click "My AOL" on the icon bar across the top of the window. Select "Preferences."

2. When the "Preferences" window opens, click the "WWW" icon. In the Internet Properties window that comes up, select the "Advanced" tab.

3. In the section labeled "Temporary Internet files," click the "Settings ..." button once, then click the "Empty Folder ..." or "Purge Cache" button once. Click "Yes" once to empty the folder and remove previously viewed files.

4. Click "OK" to close the two windows. Then close the "Preferences" window.

Now you can browse the web and view high color images the way they are supposed to look. If you download images to use on your web pages make sure that they are being saved as .jpg images. If necessary, select jpg from the file type selector on the download popup.