We all know the super advanced computer nerds who know all the terms associated with your computer. They get going and start throwing words around, talking a million miles a minute and soon enough they have rattled off three consecutive sentences without you understanding much of what they said. These people work knee-deep in technical jargon without realizing other people don’t understand what they are saying. Normally it would be best to just ignore these people, but sometimes you actually need to know what they are talking about in the case that they are helping you with work or fixing your computer.

In an effort to avoid any situation where you end up feeling stupid, I will run through some often heard, but rarely understood computer jargon. So if you find yourself wishing you understood more of what is being said in computer circles, take a scroll through these terms.

BMP – Refers to Bitmap, which is the most common graphics file type for Windows computers. It is an image file format used to save digital images.

Browser – You know what this is, you just never called it by this name. It’s the software or program that displays the pages of the Internet. Internet Explorer and Firefox are the most common browsers.

Compression – The process of reducing the amount of storage space that a file takes up on your computer.

Cookie – A tool that tracks visits to a web site and records the user’s preferences.

Domain name – The address or URL of a web site that you enter to access the site. Ex. www.google.com

Driver – The software that Windows requires to use a piece of hardware such as a printer or hard disk.

Firewall – The program that allows or disallows Internet access to a network or computer.

Flash Player – The software that allows you to create and view animations and videos from web sites.

HTML – Hypertext Markup Language. The lines of code that are used to create web pages.

Hyperlink – A graphic or text that you click one in order to take you from one web page or web site to another. Text that serves as a hyperlink is usually underlined and your mouse icon will usually change appearance from the normal arrow to a small hand when you scroll over a hyperlink.

JPEG – A compressed graphic or picture file that is often used for sending across the Internet.

Malware – Software such as a virus or spyware program that is used to do harm to a computer or help online criminals steal information from people by gaining access to the information in their computer.

MP3 – A compressed music file that is used to transfer online or save space when you are saving them on a disk.

Phishing – Malicious e-mails or web sites that try to trick people into giving their information out over the Internet. Online criminals often use this information for identity theft schemes.

Plug-in – These are extra programs that can be added to another program in order to perform advanced functions. An example of this would be adding a program to your Internet browser that allows you to play specific movie files.

These are just a few of the computer terms that it may be helpful for you to know, but in this day of ever-advancing technology, there is always more to know.