Jul 23 2009
The Internet
The Internet is a vast network that connects many independent networks spanning over 170 countries in the World. It links computers of many different types, sizes, and operating systems, and, of course, the many people of those countries that use the Internet to communicate.
The one thing all these different computers have in common is the use of the Internet Protocol, abbreviated as IP, which allows computers of different types to communicate with each other. You will often see reference to the longer abbreviation, TCP/IP, which stands for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. Your own computer uses TCP/IP software to enable it to link to this service.
What can I do on the Internet?
The Internet Protocol makes it possible for you to communicate in various ways, find things that interest you, and exchange information and files. The most common things you can do are:
- Get information on almost any subject by searching the web.
- Send and receive email or chat or exchange messages with people all over the world. Almost as fast as the telephone, there is never a busy signal, and you never play phone tag.
- Join discussion groups about a common subject with message boards, Newsgroups and email discussion lists.
- Get or exchange software and files with the File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
- Explore the World Wide Web, which can use all of the above, and adds easy links to other resources and adds multimedia–graphics, sound, and video capabilities.
- Publish your own material on the web in blogs, message boards, or your own web pages.
What is WWW?
Many people use the terms Internet and World Wide Web (or just the Web) interchangeably, but the two terms are not synonymous.
The World Wide Web is a huge set of interlinked documents, images and other resources, linked by hyperlinks and URLs. These hyperlinks and URLs allow the web servers and other machines that store originals, and cached copies of, these resources to deliver them as required using HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol). HTTP is only one of the communication protocols used on the Internet.
What is URL?
Each web page has its own unique address or URL. The URL will have the format “http” and a domain (such as .”co.uk”). What goes in between is arbitrary, but often has the term “www” such as in “http://www.name.co.uk”.
What is browser?
Browser is a software that will load and display a web page. A browser interprets the HTML or XML code from the web page files, executes embedded scripts and programs, provides encryption/decryption for security where needed, displays graphics (except text-only browsers), plays music and video, and provides links to related pages. Browsers are purportedly based on standards developed by the World Wide Web Consortium and recognized by the Internet Engineering Task Force. The major browser software developers participate in these organizations, but each of them also builds in their own proprietary codes, whether or not approved by the organizations. These differences in browsers create a challenge for web page developers.
The principle browsers are Netscape, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera, Mosaic, and the text-only Lynx. See the Internet Software Guide.