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3.1 What Is a Network, and How Do You Join One?

A Closer Look:
Wait. The Internet and the
World Wide Web Aren’t the Same Thing?

Many people use the terms Internet and World Wide Web interchangeably, but they are
different. The Internet is a gigantic global network of networks that connects millions of
computers together, so any computer can communicate with any other computer in the
world. The World Wide Web, known commonly as “the web,” is one method of accessing
and sharing information on the Internet and is probably the part of the Internet with
which people are most familiar.

The web uses software tools called browsers to access web pages that are linked to one
another via hyperlinks and web documents that contain text, graphics, video, and sound.
The web also uses a special protocol, or set of rules for sending information between
computers, called hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP). So the web address of all sites on
the World Wide Web begin with http: or https: (for secure websites).

However, you use other parts of the Internet as well. E-mail, for example, uses the Inter-
net, not the web, to send and retrieve messages between computers. E-mail uses a dif-
ferent protocol, called simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP), to send e-mail messages
and other protocols to retrieve those messages. Instant messaging and Usenet news
groups operate on still different parts of the Internet. So think of the Internet as a mas-
sive universe, with the web, e-mail, instant messaging, and other galaxies within it.

Jumpeestudio/iStock/Thinkstock filborg/iStock/Thinkstock

The Internet and the World Wide Web are not the same thing. The Internet is a global
system of interconnected computer networks that all use the same rules, or protocols,
to communicate with one another. The web is simply a part of the Internet that uses one
protocol to enable you to access information on web pages.

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