Confusion or misconception of the Internet and the World Wide Web has been around for years now. But they are not the same things. They are different from one another but are solely related to each other and both are invented by different persons or agencies.
The Internet definitely takes first place here. It is a global system of computer networks connected to each other. The Internet emerged 59 years ago in the year 1960. The federal government of the United States set up a research commission to build powerful communication with computer networks.
When it comes to the World Wide Web scientist Tim Berners Lee is the one who invented it in 1989. He wrote the first web browser in 1990. And at that point in time, he was working for CERN in Switzerland. WWW is most commonly termed as the Web. We are seeing the 30th year of a successful journey of the Web which is a part of the Internet.
I hope those who were confused or misunderstood are now clear that they both are related but different from each other.
What is the difference between the Internet and the World Wide Web
The Internet:
It is a cluster of networks that are interconnected to each other accross the World. The Internet contains educational, business, public, healthcare and government networks expanding from local to a global scale.
The internet is connected via a wide multitude of wireless, electronic and optical networking technologies.
The Internet brings and transmits an enormous range of information resources and services like hypertext documents (inter-linked) and application of the world wide web, telephony, file sharing, and electronic mail. It uses the internet protocol suite to get connected to the devices worldwide.
The U.S Department of Defense founded the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) and then created ARPANET in the year 1969. They built a network of mainframe computers at best and dominant universities.
Internet is the infrastructure that connects the world via networks and that includes both hardware and software developments.
An example would better help here, let’s suppose you are emailing someone or trying to transfer a file directly from one computer to another with the help of file transfer protocol.
According to the Internet World Statistics (Data source: Nielson//Net Ratings/ITU), 4,346,561,853 people are connected to the Internet as of March 2019.
Short and fast key points about the Internet
- The Internet is absolutely decentralized system.
- It is a massive network interconnecting computers on a global scale.
- There are limited but obvious ways to connect to the Internet.
- Almost 4 Billion people in the world use the Internet.
The World Wide Web :
The World Wide Web in simple terms is an information system or a medium over which the data is accessed. The web resources and information is basically recognized by Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) such as https://www.aerial-surver.com
Invented by English scientist Tim Lee and first, the browser was released outside CERN in 1991. Then it was brought to the public in August of 1991. It is just like a virtual appliance used by billions of people to interact over the Internet.
The WWW uses web browsers to display the information it gathers from or rather the Internet transmits. It is a string of characters called Unifrom Resource Locator which when entered, brings the information there on the Internet. The URL characterize the location of a document drafted in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).
The web generally uses browsers such as Internet Explorer or Firefox to have access to the Web documents known as Web pages. And these webpages are linked to each other with the help of hyperlinks.
To reach this website you must have to surf the World Wide Web.
Short and fast key points about the World Wide Web
- The web is a structure of Internet servers that supports HTML and inter-linking between documents.
- You can hop from one document to another by clicking on a hyperlink.
- The web documents are coded or written in a markup language (HTML).
- Web browsers are basically an large application that makes it easy to access the Worldwide Web.
- In total, there are almost 1,280,000,000 websites globally.
Both the Internet and the World Wide Web have different applications and use in our lives and both are very essential for everyday use, both for an Organisation or an individual. The web happens to be a substantial section of the Internet but both are of major importance today. The Internet is an infrastructure whereas the Web is a service in that Infrastructure.
Just for an example: The Internet can be said as a Library and the Web is a part of a collection of good books in the Library.
Wrapping things Up
Our discussion on The Difference Between the Internet and the World Wide Web — and Why It Matters ends here. The Internet and the World Wide Web are connected to each other and the Web plays a very vital role on the Internet. Those who were confused or wanted to make sure about the individuality of the two has definitely gotten the difference and why it matters.