🌍 Look something up on the internet
Use a web browser to search for anything — recipes, phone numbers, news, and more.
Which device are you using?
Pick one and the steps below will use the right words for you.
📱 A quick heads-up
This guide is written for phone, tablet, and computer. Choose that device above to follow along — or look at the related guides below for your device.
The internet is like the world's largest library, open day and night. A web browser is the app you use to look things up, and searching is as simple as typing a question.
🧭 New to this? Start here first
These short guides cover what you need before this one — no rush.
✅ What you need
- Your device, connected to the internet
Step by step
- Open your web browser. On a phone or tablet this is often Safari (a blue compass) or Chrome (a colorful circle). Open your web browser. On a computer this is often Edge, Chrome, or Safari.
- Tap the bar across the top — the one with a magnifying glass or the word Search. Click the long bar across the top of the window — the search or address bar.
- Type what you are looking for in plain words, such as apple pie recipe or pharmacy near me. You can even ask a whole question.
- Tap Go or the magnifying glass to search. Press the Enter key on your keyboard to search.
- A list of results appears. Each blue heading is a link to a different website.
- Tap a blue heading to open that website and read it. Click a blue heading to open that website and read it.
- To return to your list of results, tap the back arrow in the top corner. To return to your list of results, click the back arrow in the top corner.
💡 Helpful tips
- Results marked Ad or Sponsored are advertisements. They are not always the best answer, so look a little further down the list too.
- If a website suddenly warns you of a virus and tells you to call a number or pay to fix it, close it. That is a scam, not a real message from your device.
The more you search, the more natural it feels. There is no such thing as a silly question to type — the internet has seen them all, and it never minds.