What is the Internet?
The Internet is a massive public spiderweb of computer connections. It connects personal computers, mainframes, cell phones, GPS units, music players, soda pop machines, homes, car alarms, and even dog collars. All of these computer connections exist for the sake of free information sharing.
What is the Web?
The World Wide Web, or “web” for short, is the very large subset of the internet dedicated to broadcasting a massive collection of HTML pages that people and businesses create and post.
These pages are viewed by using free software called web browsers.
Born in 1989, the Web is based on hypertext transfer protocol, the language which allows you and me to “jump” (hyperlink) to any other public web page. There are more than 90 billion public web pages on the Web, and over 300 billion private (‘invisible’) web pages.
Together, the internet and the web combine to give you the information you need in an easy-to-read way.
More About How The Internet Works
The modern internet is a daily tool for millions of people to communicate with each other.
Thousands of different software packages broadcast on the Net, connecting millions of users each day. At one point, the internet was nicknamed “The Information Superhighway”, a term which has now become grossly inadequate to describe the sheer magnitude of the internet’s reach.
No single organization owns the internet’s hardware. No single organization governs its use. The Internet truly is a marvel of free broadcasting and amateur publishing.
Anyone can use the Internet. As long as you have a computer, cell phone, or other internet-enabled device, you simply find a free or paid place to connect. Once you are connected (sometimes called ‘logged on’), you can broadcast and receive all kinds of signals.
How did the Internet get started?
An organization called Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) developed the concept of packet switching which ultimately led to the creation of TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol). ARPAnet was originally an experiment in how the US military could maintain communications in case of a possible nuclear strike. With time, ARPAnet became a civilian experiment, connecting university mainframe computers for academic purposes.Out of that grew today’s internet, an interconnection of computer networks.
Today, the Internet has grown into a public spiderweb of millions of personal, government, and commercial computers, all connected by cables and by wireless signals.