How does the internet really work? I spoke to a few folks over the past week and discovered the majority of people don’t have any understanding to how the World Wide Web works. So here you go – a very basic answer to  a very complex system – here goes nothing…

The internet consists of two types of computers; a Client-side network which is your typical daily use PC and a Server-side which basically host or stores information online. If that doesn’t make sense – don’t worry we will get into it more later on.

Client-side: In order to access the internet you need a internet connection (obviously). Once you open up your computer you most likely bring up your favorite web browser such as Internet Exploder, FireFox etc.. Once your browser is up most  people type in Google, or some other website in their browsers address bar. Once this is done your requested destination page is presented to the browser – how does this all work?

First: When you type “www” or a website into your internet browser your internet browser contacts the HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol) server at that address. Once the HTTP server receives the request from the browser it looks up the web document on the “Server-side” web server.

Second: Once this is all said and done the HTTP server sends the web document back, your web browser receives the document then it processes the source code to display the website or page you requested on your browser. Still following me? Here are the basic steps in order:

1. You type in “www” / web address into a web browser (i.e. google.com)
2. Browser contacts the HTTP server at that address
3. HTTP server receives the request from the browser
4. HTTP server looks up the web document
5. HTTP server sends back the web document
6. Your browser (FireFox etc…) receives the document
7. Your browser processes the source code*
8. The browser displays the web page

BAM – that my friends is how the internet works. Most people that don’t have a background in web get pinned up at #7, your browser processes the source code – so what exactly is the source code?

Source code is the mechanism most often used by programmers to specify the actions to be performed by a computer.

I will be working on a visual presentation to help all of you visual learners out as well!

Stay classy San Francisco!

Shakes

Tags: http, internet exploder, server, world wide web, www

This entry was posted on November 8, 2009 at 11:25 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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