FAQ - An acronym for Frequently Asked Questions.

Fast - The company that owned AllTheWeb.com

FFA - Free For All (FFA link pages)

Filter Words - Words such as is, am, were, was, the, for, do, ETC, that search engines deem irrelevant for indexing purposes.

Filtering - An automatic method of screening e-mail messages as they are downloaded from the Internet. An e-mail client can be instructed to deposit (file or trash) qualifying e-mail messages in various folders as they are received. A filter can look at keywords, addresses, domains, subject matter, size, etc.

Finger - An Internet tool used to locate people on other Internet sites.

Firewall - A system designed to prevent unauthorized access to or from a private network. Firewalls can be implemented in both hardware and software, or a combination of both. Firewalls are frequently used to prevent unauthorized Internet users from accessing private networks connected to the Internet, especially intranets. All messages entering or leaving the intranet pass through the firewall, which examines each message and blocks those that do not meet the specified security criteria.

Fireworks - A web graphics program from Macromedia, designed to be used in conjunction with Dreamweaver.

Flame - To post an e-mail message intended to insult and provoke.

Flash - An animation program by Macromedia. The leading format for sophisticated Web-based animations. Flash files are very compact, and most users can view Flash files by using a widely available plug-in file. The current version differs from its predecessors by offering a sophisticated programming tool known as ActionScripting.

Form - A formatted document containing blank fields that users can fill in with data. The data is then sent directly to a forms processing application, which enters the information into a database.

Frame Relay - A communications interface that provides high-speed packet transmission with minimum delay and efficient use of bandwidth. It assumes that all connections are reliable and does not have error detection or control which helps to speed up the protocol.

Frames - An HTML technique for combining two or more separate HTML documents within a single Web browser screen. Compound interacting documents can be created to make a more effective Web page presented in multiple windows or sub-windows. A framed Web site often causes great problems for search engines, and may not be indexed correctly. Search engines will often index only the part of a framed site within the <NOFRAMES> section, so make sure that the <NOFRAMES> section includes relevant text which can be indexed by the spiders. If your site uses frames, consider providing a gateway page or adding navigational links within the framed pages. Submit the main page the one containing the <FRAMESET> tag to the search engines. If you use a gateway page, submit this separately.

Freeware - Software that is free for anyone's use (public domain), but can be copyright protected and/or have restrictions concerning duplication or resale.

Freshbot - This is the name for the Google crawlers that are known to add pages to the Google index more promptly than others.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) - A method of transferring files that permits a user to access a remote network on which he has permission (user name and password) to upload and/or download files in particular directories. FTP is one of oldest Internet conventions still being used today.