The World Wide Web (WWW)

The World Wide Web is not the Internet. That is the single most important distinction to hold from the start. The Internet is the vast, global network of interconnected computers — the physical and logical infrastructure that connects machines. The Web is a service that runs on top of that network. It is a system of interlinked hypertext documents and resources that you access through the Internet.

Before the Web, using the Internet was cumbersome. To get a file from a different computer, you had to log in to that specific machine individually. Worse, files on different computers were often stored in incompatible formats, making it difficult to read or understand documents created on another system. There was no standard way to share and present information.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, a British computer scientist, solved this in 1990. He invented the World Wide Web by defining three fundamental technologies that together created a standard, universal system for sharing information.

The Three Pillars of the Web

1. HTML – HyperText Markup Language

HTML is the language used to design web pages. Its purpose is standardisation. By writing a page in HTML, you ensure that its content — text, images, links — can be read and understood from any computer, regardless of the operating system or software being used. The basic structure of every webpage is built using HTML.

2. URI – Uniform Resource Identifier (also called URL)

Every resource on the Web — every page, image, or file — has a unique address. This address is called a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), though it is more commonly known as a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) or simply a web address.

A URL is not just the domain name. It contains several pieces of information that together form the complete address. For example, in the address http://www.ncert.nic.in/textbook/textbook.htm:

• http:// is the protocol
• www.ncert.nic.in is the domain name
• /textbook/textbook.htm is the path to the specific file

Examples of complete URLs include https://www.mhrd.gov.in, http://www.ncert.nic.in, and http://www.airindia.in.

3. HTTP – HyperText Transfer Protocol

HTTP is the set of rules that governs how linked web pages are retrieved and transferred across the Web. It defines how a browser (the client) requests a page from a server and how the server sends that page back. The more secure and advanced version of this protocol is HTTPS, which encrypts the data being transferred.

Web vs. Internet: A Clear Distinction

This confusion is common, but the difference is simple.