Engineering Entrance Exam

The Internet is a global network of networks while the Web, also referred formally as World Wide Web (www) is collection of information which is accessed via the Internet. Another way to look at this difference is; the Internet is infrastructure while the Web is service on top of that infrastructure. The World Wide Web (WWW) is one set of software services running on the Internet. The Internet itself is a global, interconnected network of computing devices. This network supports a wide variety of interactions and communications between its devices. The World Wide Web is a subset of these interactions and supports websites and URIs. The Internet is actually a huge network that is accessible to everyone & everywhere across the world. The network is composed of sub-networks comprising of a number of computers that are enabled to transmit data in packets. The internet is governed by a set of rules, laws & regulations, collectively known as the Internet Protocol (IP). The sub-networks may range from defense networks to academic networks to commercial networks to individual PCs. Internet, essentially provides information & services in the form of E-Mail, chat & file transfers. It also provides access to the World Wide Web & other interlinked web pages. The Internet & the World Wide Web (the Web), though used interchangeably, are not synonymous. Internet is the hardware part - it is a collection of computer networks connected through either copper wires, fiber-optic cables or wireless connections whereas, the World Wide Web can be termed as the software part it is a collection of web pages connected through hyperlinks and URLs. In short, the World Wide Web is one of the services provided by the Internet. Other services over the Internet include e-mail, chat and file transfer services. All of these services can be provided to consumers for use by businesses or government or by individuals creating their own networks or platforms. Another method to differentiate between both is using the Protocol Suite a collection of laws & regulations that govern the Internet. While internet is governed by the Internet Protocol specifically dealing with data as whole and their transmission in packets, the World Wide Web is governed by the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) that deals with the linking of files, documents and other resources of the World Wide Web.