What is the Internet?

Internet is a global network that connects billions of computers across the world with each
other and to the World Wide Web. It uses standard internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to
connect billions of computer users worldwide. It is set up by using cables such as optical
fibers and other wireless and networking technologies. At present, internet is the fastest mean
of sending or exchanging information and data between computers across the world.

It is believed that the internet was developed by "Defense Advanced Projects Agency"
(DARPA) department of the United States. And, it was first connected in 1969.

Why is the Internet Called a Network?

Internet is called a network as it creates a network by connecting computers and servers
across the world using routers, switches and telephone lines, and other communication
devices and channels. So, it can be considered a global network of physical cables such as
copper telephone wires, fiber optic cables, tv cables, etc. Furthermore, even wireless
connections like 3G, 4G, or Wi-Fi make use of these cables to access the Internet.

Internet is different from the World Wide Web as the World Wide Web is a network of
computers and servers created by connecting them through the internet. So, the internet is the
backbone of the web as it provides the technical infrastructure to establish the WWW and
acts as a medium to transmit information from one computer to another computer. It uses web
browsers to display the information on the client, which it fetches from web servers.

What is an intranet?
An intranet can be defined as a private network used by an
organization. Its primary purpose is to help employees securely
communicate with each other, to store information, and to help
 collaborate. Modern intranets use social intranet features that allow
employees to create profiles and to submit, like, comment, and share
posts.

What are the uses of an intranet?

An intranet software is primarily used by organizations as a tool to:

• Share organizational updates

• Store files
• Connect employees
• Collaborate with teams across borders
• Increase productivity
• Give employees a voice in the organization

The History of Internet

The first computers were devices designed to do repeated numerical operations

previously performed by hand. While computers continued to progress, they were
largely utilized for mathematical and scientific computations, message encoding,
and decoding. When the first-word processor was invented in the 1970s, computer
technology was finally applied to printed communication. Simultaneously, computers
became faster, more powerful, and smaller, and computer networks were
established to connect them.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the United States Department
of Defense, in collaboration with researchers working on military projects at research
centers and universities across the country, created the ARPANET in 1960 to share
data and processing time of uniform computer connections over specially equipped
 telephone lines and satellite links. Any digital signal, including video pictures,
sounds, graphics, animations, and text, can be carried via the Internet. As a result, it
has grown in popularity as a communication medium.

What is the history of the Internet?

The Internet's history may be traced back to 1957 when the former Soviet Union
launched its first satellite, Sputnik I, forcing US President Dwight Eisenhower to
establish the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to reclaim the
technical lead. The objective of DARPA was to improve science and technology for
military purposes. In 18 months, DARPA created its first successful satellite.
As part of its broader objective, it began to focus on computer networking and
communication technologies by the end of 1960, primarily to develop
communication linkages between research centers and universities around the
country. ARPANET was launched in 1969, with 15 nodes and 23 hosts by 1971.
Ray Torplinson devised e-mail in 1972 to convey communications across a
dispersed network.
An extranet is an organization’s private network and its available only for
selected users. It’s a way to connect to third parties like vendors, customers,
and partners in a secure and controlled way. The users typically have a login
mechanism such as username and password to access the network.
Extranet in simple terms provides a secure network for an organization to
share information with relevant people outside the organization. It is part of
an organization’s intranet divided via a firewall.
Examples:
1. An e-commerce site exchanges information with its retailers, a supplier’s
through an extranet network.
2. Multinational organizations handle their project information, clients and
communicate with another organization over an extranet network.
3. University provides an e-learning platform for their students over the
extranet network.
Advantages and Disadvantages of the Internet

Advantages of Internet Disadvantages of Internet

It provides great Accessibility to information. Sometimes, the internet gives Complexity and
False Information.

It inculcates easy and faster communication. Unavailability in bad weather.

People would gain knowledge and obtain loads of It leads to the insecurity of information and data
information about services. loss.
It permits online payments and digital marketing. It has a bigger Workload and Complex
Designing.

It is efficient for business & organizational growth. It is very expensive when done at the
organizational level.

It leads to mass communication among people to It produces more threats, cyber-attacks,

spread awareness. harassment, and violations.

It facilitates social networks to increase Increase hate and fake information which can
development and collaboration. lead to mental health issues.

It provides more security in the banking sector Reliability and security are there, but as the
and feasible solutions to issues. internet is public and worldwide connected, there
are chances that issues(viruses, threats) can
occur.

Examples of Applications
An Internet application does something for end users. It is generally not
concerned with how data is actually transmitted between the hosts. Here are
some distributed applications that require well-defined application level
protocols:

• Sending and receiving email

• Searching and browsing information archives
• Copying files between computers
• Conducting financial transactions
• Navigating (in your car, smart scooter, smart bike, or other)
• Playing interactive games
• Video and music streaming
• Chat or voice communication (direct messaging, video conferencing)

In addition, there are a number of network services such as:

• Name servers
• Configuration servers
• Mail gateways, transfer agents, relays
• File and print servers
WWW
WWW stands for World Wide Web. The world wide web is one set of software
services running on the internet. It is a system of interlinked hypertext
documents accessed via the Internet. Http stand for hypertext transfer protocol.
It is the set of rules for transferring files like text, graphic image, sound, video
and other multimedia files etc. on the world wide

URL
With Hypertext and HTTP, URL is one of the key concepts of the Web. It is the mechanism
used by browsers to retrieve any published resource on the web.

URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator. A URL is nothing more than the address of a
given unique resource on the Web. In theory, each valid URL points to a unique resource.
Such resources can be an HTML page, a CSS document, an image, etc. In practice, there are
some exceptions, the most common being a URL pointing to a resource that no longer exists
or that has moved. As the resource represented by the URL and the URL itself are handled by
the Web server, it is up to the owner of the web server to carefully manage that resource and
its associated URL.

Basics: anatomy of a URL

Here are some examples of URLs:

https://developer.mozilla.org
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/search?q=URL

Domain name: definition

A domain name refers to your website address. This is what users type in a
browser's search bar to directly access your website. A domain name
is unique and cannot be shared between different sites. For example: ovhcloud.com

Domain name definition: going further

Each website is identified by a unique set of numbers, called an IP address. Your

computer uses these numbers to connect to the server where the website data is
located. When visitors enter a domain name in their search bar, it sends a request
to a set of Domain Name System (DNS) servers. The DNS then responds with the IP
address of the website’s hosting server, making it accessible. Domain names were
created because IP addresses are too complicated to remember. So, for internet
users to access a website, it needs to be given a name.
The structure of a domain name

To finish off this definition of a domain name, here is a quick explanation of its
structure. Let’s take the domain name of the OVHcloud website as an
example: www.ovhcloud.com

• www: this refers to the third-level domain (World Wide Web).

• ovhcloud: refers to the second-level domain; this is the name of the site.
• .com: this is the top-level domain (TLD), also known as a domain name extension.

Internet addressing
Internet Address means such sequence of alpha numeric or numeric only characters as
are used from time to time by the Customer to identify himself and or his computer or
computers to other users of other computers to which the Company is from time to time
connecting or otherwise forwarding data to and from the Customer. ISP: means an
Internet Service Provider.

IP address (Internet Protocol

address)
What is an IP address (Internet Protocol address)?
An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a unique numerical identifier for every
device or network that connects to the internet. Typically assigned by an
internet service provider (ISP), an IP address is an online device address
used for communicating across the internet.

What is 'Web Server'

Definition: A web server is a computer that runs websites. It's a computer
program that distributes web pages as they are requisitioned. The basic
objective of the web server is to store, process and deliver web pages to the
users. This intercommunication is done using Hypertext Transfer Protocol
(HTTP). These web pages are mostly static content that includes HTML
documents, images, style sheets, test etc. Apart from HTTP, a web server also
supports SMTP (Simple Mail transfer Protocol) and FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
protocol for emailing and for file transfer and storage.

Description: The main job of a web server is to display the website content. If a
web server is not exposed to the public and is used internally, then it is called
Intranet Server. When anyone requests for a website by adding the URL or web
address on a web browser’s (like Chrome or Firefox) address bar (like
www.economictimes.com), the browser sends a request to the Internet for
viewing the corresponding web page for that address. A Domain Name Server
(DNS) converts this URL to an IP Address (For example 192.168.216.345),
which in turn points to a Web Server.

The Web Server is requested to present the content website to the user’s
browser. All websites on the Internet have a unique identifier in terms of an IP
address. This Internet Protocol address is used to communicate between
different servers across the Internet. These days, Apache server is the most
common web server available in the market. Apache is an open source software
that handles almost 70 percent of all websites available today. Most of the web-
based applications use Apache as their default Web Server environment. Another
web server that is generally available is Internet Information Service (IIS). IIS is
owned by Microsoft.

What Does Web Browser Mean?

A web browser is a software program that allows a user to locate, access, and
display web pages. In common usage, a web browser is usually shortened to
"browser."

Web browsers are used primarily for displaying and accessing websites on the
internet, as well as other content created using languages such as Hypertext
Markup Language (HTML) and Extensible Markup Language (XML).

Browsers translate web pages and websites delivered using Hypertext Transfer
Protocol (HTTP) into human-readable content. They also have the ability to
display other protocols and prefixes, such as secure HTTP (HTTPS), File
Transfer Protocol (FTP), email handling (mailto:), and files (file:).

In addition, most browsers also support external plug-ins required to display

active content, such as in-page video, audio and game content.