World Wide Web

World Wide Web, which is also known as a Web, is a collection of websites or web pages stored in web servers and connected to local computers through the internet. These websites contain text pages, digital images, audios, videos, etc. Users can access the content of these sites from any part of the world over the internet using their devices such as computers, laptops, cell phones, etc. The WWW, along with internet, enables the retrieval and display of text and media to your device. 

The building blocks of the Web are web pages which are formatted in HTML and connected by links called "hypertext" or hyperlinks and accessed by HTTP. These links are electronic connections that link related pieces of information so that users can access the desired information quickly. Hypertext offers the advantage to select a word or phrase from text and thus to access other pages that provide additional information related to that word or phrase.

The World Wide Web was invented by a British scientist, Tim Berners-Lee in 1989.

 

How the World Wide Web Works?

 WWW is a collection of websites connected to the internet so that people can search and share information. Now, let us understand how it works!

 

 

The Web works as per the internet's basic client-server format as shown in the following image. The servers store and transfer web pages or information to user's computers on the network when requested by the users. A web server is a software program which serves the web pages requested by web users using a browser. The computer of a user who requests documents from a server is known as a client. Browser, which is installed on the user' computer, allows users to view the retrieved documents.

 

 

All the websites are stored in web servers. Just as someone lives on rent in a house, a website occupies a space in a server and remains stored in it. The server hosts the website whenever a user requests its WebPages, and the website owner has to pay the hosting price for the same.

The moment you open the browser and type a URL in the address bar or search something on Google, the WWW starts working. There are three main technologies involved in transferring information (web pages) from servers to clients (computers of users). These technologies include Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and Web browsers.

 

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML):

HTML is a standard markup language which is used for creating web pages. It describes the structure of web pages through HTML elements or tags. These tags are used to organize the pieces of content such as 'heading,' 'paragraph,' 'table,' 'Image,' and more. You don't see HTML tags when you open a webpage as browsers don't display the tags and use them only to render the content of a web page. In simple words, HTML is used to display text, images, and other resources through a Web browser.

Web Browser:

A web browser, which is commonly known as a browser, is a program that displays text, data, pictures, videos, animation, and more. It provides a software interface that allows you to click hyperlinked resources on the World Wide Web. When you double click the Browser icon installed on your computer to launch it, you get connected to the World Wide Web and can search Google or type a URL into the address bar.

In the beginning, browsers were used only for browsing due to their limited potential. Today, they are more advanced; along with browsing you can use them for e-mailing, transferring multimedia files, using social media sites, and participating in online discussion groups and more. Some of the commonly used browsers include Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, and more.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP):

Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol which enables WWW to work smoothly and effectively. It is based on a client-server model. The client is a web browser which communicates with the web server which hosts the website. This protocol defines how messages are formatted and transmitted and what actions the Web Server and browser should take in response to different commands. When you enter a URL in the browser, an HTTP command is sent to the Web server, and it transmits the requested Web Page.

When we open a website using a browser, a connection to the web server is opened, and the browser communicates with the server through HTTP and sends a request. HTTP is carried over TCP/IP to communicate with the server. The server processes the browser's request and sends a response, and then the connection is closed. Thus, the browser retrieves content from the server for the user.