Patent ID: 8131665

Claim:
An apparatus comprising a storage medium having computer program instructions encoded on it, where the computer program instructions are executable on a client computer operated by a user and connected to a network, and where the computer program instructions configure the client computer to carry out operations comprising: (a) displaying a first web page in a web browser window on a display screen associated with the client computer, where the first web page has been retrieved over the network from a web server at the direction of the user, where the first web page includes a link to a second web page, and where the second web page has contents that include other links that the user can interact with when the contents are displayed; (b) monitoring input, including monitoring input from a pointing device associated with the client computer for a selection action performed on the link to the second web page, and including monitoring input for an alternative selection action performed on the link to the second web page, where the alternative selection action includes use of the pointing device by the user, but is interpreted differently by the client computer than the selection action; (c) detecting that the user has performed the alternative selection action on the link to the second web page; and (d) in response to detecting that the user has performed the alternative selection action on the link to the second web page, retrieving information from the second web page over the network to the client computer, where the operation of retrieving information from the second web page is carried out without yet displaying the contents of the second web page.