What is the web or the Internet?

Here is my first tech article. I feel obligated to share with you the notion of the Internet which is, for many, what an abstract thing.

What is the the Internet?

The Internet is actually a collection of computers linked together and providing services.

This relay can take various forms, namely optical fiber, copper cable, radio wave, electricity.

A diagram maybe?

Caption:

• FAI (ISP): Internet Service Provider
• Serveur WWW (WWW server): web server setting up a website like OVH and this blog.

To browse the web?

To browse the web, you will understand that you need to be connected to the Internet by an Internet Service Provider (ISP). Once the connection is made, you will have the option of transmitting or receiving data on this network.

To view websites, you will need a web browser. There are lots of them, namely Internet Explorer (Microsoft), Chrome (Google), Firefox (Mozilla), Safary and so on ...

If you are viewing this site it is because you are using a browser.

How it works ?

Websites provide text in a particular, standardized language: HyperText Markup Language (HTML), which allows different browsers to display the same thing. Or at least in theory. The HTML source code is visible and public, most of the time you just need to right click the mouse and choose (See page source).

This data received by the browser uses a communication "protocol" the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). This is what we put at the beginning of the address in the browser. When you put an "s" it stands for secured: example for online shops or sites containing sensitive data.

Are there other protocols?

Yes, there is also the File Transfer Protocol used to retrieve files or deposit files on a web server. Other protocols exist but are not used to display web pages. For example, mail forwarding; SMTP, Mail recovery: pop3, imap ..., or for companies putting equipment on the network: equipment supervision with SNMP.