One of the customs that human beings have is that they tend to call things by their simplest name, but at the same time they also tend to confuse concepts and mix them up when knowledge about the matter to be addressed is diffuse and not very clear. It happens usually when we want to refer to WWW (World Wide Web) and the Internet. On many occasions they are taken as synonyms, but are they exactly the same?
Keep in mind that both are necessary to navigate, but this does not mean that they are the same. It can be a bit confusing and surprise many users, because the web and the Internet are two totally different things. The World Wide Web is just one way to access information through the Internet, and although it represents a large part of it and is the most popular way, treating them as synonyms is a serious mistake . Other widely used protocols coexist in the network of networks such as FTP (file transmission), P2P (decentralized file transmission), SSH and Telnet (remote access), IMAP, POP and SMTP (sending and receiving email) , IPTV (online television), XMPP (instant messaging) among others. Let’s see then what are the differences between the Web and the Internet.
Word wide web
It is the way we have to access information through the Internet. Let’s say that it is a model for sharing information that is built on the Internet, since its arrival was after the end of the 80s. It is about all the content and all the websites that we can access through our devices . It encompasses all services, platforms, social networks, pages, etc.
The web uses different protocols and rules to function properly. One of the most popular protocols used by the web is HTTP, but this is only one of the many ways that information can be transmitted over the Internet. Other protocols it uses are the HTTPS variant, TCP / IP, and UDP.
To be able to access the web, we are inevitably going to need the Internet infrastructure. Without this part we could not do anything. That is why when today we have to do a search on Google, enter any page or consult social networks, it can be said that we are making use of both the Internet and the web.
For example, if a service uses HTTP to allow applications to communicate, it is a web service. Browsers such as Chrome or Safari allow us to access countless web documents that we know and identify as pages or websites. These sites are connected to each other through hyperlinks as if it were a spider web. All of this is possible thanks to the HTTP transfer protocol. In short, the web is only one of the ways in which information is able to flow through the Internet, but it is only a part and it is not the whole of the Internet .
So what is the internet
Internet is a set of decentralized networks (Net) that are interconnected (Inter) with each other to allow access from anywhere in the world. It is the massive network, the network of networks . The Internet connects millions of computers around the world through a network that allows any computer or device to communicate with another no matter where on the planet it is, as long as there is an Internet connection in both cases. It is based on the TCP / IP protocol through which users have access to different services available thanks to the servers connected to any of the networks that make up the Internet.
For example, we can have access to a local network within our home to which only our family’s devices can access and that are connected through a router, or to a work network to which only workers from a company. The Internet is a large-scale global network that allows the connection of millions of devices at the same time in a free and open way.
The origin
To find the origins of the Internet we have to go back to the end of the 60s . Its beginnings are closely related to the military career and, especially, with the defense. The original idea that later ended up evolving in what we now know as the Internet arose within ARPA known as DARPA, (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) in the middle of the Cold War. ARPANet (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) was born out of the need of the United States government to get more performance from data centers and connect with each other. A network in which not only military institutions participated, but also US universities or laboratories were incorporated. In other words, we can say that the Internet arose to connect different equipment with each other and is the basis for the web to transmit information through him.
