You can copy a URL into a second window, and navigate the same page two different ways. This can be useful when you are exploring the Internet and want to try two different paths at the same time.
- First, open several browsers as described in running multiple windows, and then open the page you want to clone in one window.
- Open the same page in a second window in the same way you got to it in the first window (for example by selecting it from your bookmarks), or copy the URL from the first page and paste it into the URL field on the second page directly and then press return.
A couple of reasons you might want to clone a site are listed below:
- Duplicate searches. It can be useful to duplicate a search result page without having to redo the search. Just copy the URL from one search result window to a second window, paste it into the URL field, and press return, and the same search result page will load in the second window.
For example, you can select links from the search result in one window while keeping the entire search listing in another window for reference. Or you can explore different links of the search result in different windows at the same time.
- Downloading. You may find a page through a search engine that identifies a download file, and your want to learn more about the file before downloading it. You can copy the URL, paste it into the location field of a second window, and then delete the left-most part containing the name of the file to visit the rest of the same directory (see the virtual city). Sometimes this loads a default page with context information for the download file. Sometimes there is no default page, and it displays directory information.