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Digital Literacy How the Web Works The World Wide Web The Big Picture

Mathew Woodruff
Mathew Woodruff
1,448 Points
Posted by Mathew Woodruff
Mathew Woodruff
1,448 Points

Internet vs. Web

I'm having a little difficulty understanding the differences between the Internet and the Web. I believe it is because the two seem to be interchangeable in normal conversation. From what I gather the Internet refers the the hardware aspect of it - "wires, routers, switches and satellites, connecting the network of servers together." While the Web is the information or data - "the software that makes up websites, applications, games, wikis and videos that you can access on a web browser." What confuses me is later it is said "Servers, however, use numbers to locate each other, not words. These numbers are called IP addresses and work similarly to how phone numbers work, with each IP address pointing to a particular server on the Web." I thought that the servers were located on the internet and the webpage the Web. Am I confused because I am I reading too far into the definitions, or is it because they mean the same thing in layman's terms.

2 Answers

Jared Langdon
Jared Langdon
8,178 Points
Jared Langdon
Jared Langdon
8,178 Points

Yes, and yes, Joseph and Brendan. Let me take a stab at it:

The internet is an infrastructure, a massive network of networks made possible by all kinds of cables, devices, and other hardware. As mentioned in one of Joy's previous videos, the development of this infrastructure dates back to the 1950s and it allows for computers to speak with one another.

Around 1990, the World Wide Web was created as a way of accessing information using the internet as a medium. In short, the web is a model built on top of the internet as a means of sharing and accessing information.

While the web takes up a significant portion of what happens on the internet, it does not account for other services that take place on the internet, such as e-mail (which relies on SMTP as opposed to HTTP), Usenet newsgroups, instant messaging, and FTP. You can Google any of these to find out more about what kinds of services they provide and how they work.

Timothy Durward
Timothy Durward
6,663 Points
Timothy Durward
Timothy Durward
6,663 Points
  1. Internet: Network infrastructure with large or small sets of data (Servers)
  2. Web: Accessing the internet through multiple protocols, infamously HTTP.

If you were to access a webpage https://teamtreehouse.com (199.182.122.104) you'd use HTTPS to securely get information from the server(internet).

You can also use FTP to access the internet/data, without even accessing a webpage. Or using an email client like MS Office which uses SMTP to access the internet/data.

Joseph O'Donnell
Joseph O'Donnell
1,449 Points

So in short, the internet is the network, but the web refers to a specifc means of accessing the internet, and encompasses the variety of content available through this means?