World Wide Web

World Wide Web (WWW), computer-based network of information resources that a user can move through by using links from one document to another. The information on the World Wide Web is spread over computers all over the world. The World Wide Web is often referred to simply as “the Web.”

The Web has become a very popular resource since it first became possible to view images and other multimedia on the Internet, a worldwide network of computers, in 1993. The Web offers a place where companies, institutions, and individuals can display information about their products, research, or their lives. Anyone with access to a computer connected to the Web can view most of that information. A small percentage of information on the Web is only accessible to subscribers or other authorized users. The Web has become a forum for many groups and a marketplace for many companies. Museums, libraries, government agencies, and schools make the Web a valuable learning and research tool by posting data and research. The Web also carries information in a wide spectrum of formats. Users can read text, view pictures, listen to sounds, and even explore interactive virtual environments on the Web.

Like all computer networks, the Web connects two types of computers–clients and servers—using a standard set of rules for communication between the. The server computers store the information resources that make up the Web and Web users use client computers to access the resources. A computer-based network may be a public network—such as the worldwide Internet—or a private network, such as a company’s intranet. The Web is part of the Internet. The Internet also encompasses other methods of linking computers, such as Telnet, File Transfer Protocol, and Gopher, but the Web has quickly become the most widely used part of the Internet. It differs from the other parts of the Internet in the rules that computers use to talk to each other and in the accessibility of information other than text. It is much more difficult to view pictures or other multimedia files with methods other than the Web.

Enabling client computers to display Web pages with pictures and other media was made possible by the introduction of a type of software called a browser. Each Web document contains coded information about what is on the page, how the page should look, and to which other sites the document links. The browser on the client’s computer reads this information and uses it to display the page on the client’s screen. Almost every Web page or Web document includes links, called hyperlinks, to other Web sites. Hyperlinks are a defining feature of the Web—they allow users to travel between Web documents without following a specific order or hierarchy.