Web browsers cache resources from web pages, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images, and other assets so you don’t have to download everything from scratch every time you load a page. Most of the time this is a good thing because it makes browsing the web a lot faster.

However, sometimes (like when you’re working on a website) the cache can get in your way by showing you an older version of the page from the cache instead of downloading the new stuff you just changed.

If this happens to you there’s a quick way to bypass your web browser’s cache: just hold Shift when you click on the Reload button and your browser will ignore its cache and get a fresh copy of the site from the server.

In any web browser, on both Mac and Windows computers, hitting Control + Tab will take you to the next tab.

Want to go back? Control + Shift + Tab will take you to the previous tab.

You’re really going to love this one.

1. Open your web browser’s preferences.
2. Change your default search engine to DuckDuckGo.
3. Enjoy incredibly versatile search right from your browser’s address/search field by using DuckDuckGo’s bangs.

What the heck is a DuckDuckGo bang, you ask? It’s a bit of text you add to your search that makes magic happen. Let me explain!

If you’ve followed the steps above, and DuckDuckGo is now your default search engine, you can easily search the web for pants by typing the following into your address/search bar:

pants

That would take you to the normal DuckDuckGo search for pants.

But what if you wanted to search Amazon for pants instead? Just type this:

pants !a

That !a at the end is a DuckDuckGo bang, and including it in your search will take you directly to a search for pants on Amazon’s site!

To be clear, this will not show you results from Amazon on DuckDuckGo, or inside a DuckDuckGo wrapper, or any other nonsense. No, this will take you directly to Amazon’s site and search for pants there, directly from your browser’s address/search bar, all in a single step.

Cool, right? There’s more!

Maybe now it’s time to check eBay for pants:

pants !e

Want to learn more about pants in general on Wikipedia?

pants !w

Are the DuckDuckGo search results not sufficient to quench your thirst for pants knowledge? Try Google instead:

pants !g

Or maybe you want to see some images of pants from Google Images?

pants !gi

Wondering what people on Twitter are saying about pants?

pants !tw

The list goes on. There are currently almost 10,000 bangs to choose from, all easily searchable, so finding and memorizing your favorites is a piece of cake.

And, as icing on said cake, DuckDuckGo is a great search engine that respects your privacy and doesn’t track you.

Your web browser’s built in search just got better by an order of magnitude. Enjoy!

We’ve all closed a web page on accident at one point or another. The good news is that they’re easy to get back!

If you’re using a Mac or PC you’ll find various options under the History menu of your web browser for restoring recently closed pages.

On iOS devices (like iPhones and iPads), you can restore recently closed web pages by pressing and holding the + (new page/tab) button in Safari.

In Chrome on Android, tap on the menu button (represented by three stacked dots) and select the Recent tabs option.

I’ll often find myself working on a site that I’m logged in to, but I need to see what things look like when not logged in, or logged in as a different user. It’s a huge pain to log out and log back in every time I need to do this. I could use another web browser entirely, but that’s also a bit annoying and not always practical.

Thankfully there’s a better way! You can use your web browser’s private browsing/incognito mode to open any web page and view it as if you weren’t logged in without actually having to log out. Private browsing using an entirely different session with separate cookies, local storage, and so on, making it a quick and easy way to see what it’s like to be logged out without actually logging out. You can even log in using another account, all without disrupting your normal browsing session.

To open a private browsing window go to the File menu and select the New Private Window (Safari and Firefox) or New Incognito Window (Chrome) option.