world wide web and its components and the related aspects

world wide web and its components and the related aspects

1. World Wide Web & Web Browsers

2. World Wide Web The  World Wide Web  is abbreviated as WWW and is commonly known as the web. The WWW was initiated by CERN (European Council for Nuclear Research) in 1989.  WWW can be defined as the collection of different websites around the world, containing different information shared via local servers ( or computers ). These websites contain text pages, digital images, audios, videos, etc.

3. Users can access the content of these sites from any part of the world over the internet using their devices such as computers, laptops, cell phones, etc. The WWW, along with internet, enables the retrieval and display of text and media to your device . A web page is given an online address called a Uniform Resource Locator (URL ). Collection of web pages that belong to a specific URL is called a website, e.g.,  www.facebook.com ,  www.google.com , etc. So, the Web is like a huge electronic book whose pages are stored on multiple servers across the world.

4. Small websites store all of their Web Pages on a single server, but big websites or organizations place their Web Pages on different servers in different countries so that when users of a country search their site they could get the information quickly from the nearest server . W eb provides a communication platform for users to retrieve and exchange information over the internet. Unlike a book, where we move from one page to another in a sequence, on Web we follow hypertext links to visit a web page and from that web page to move to other web pages. In order to access the Web, a browser is needed to be installed on system.

5. History of the World Wide Web It is a project created, by Tim Berner’s Lee in 1989, for researchers to work together effectively at CERN. CERN (European Council for Nuclear Research) is an organization , later named as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which developed the web. This organization is directed by Tim Berner’s Lee, the father of the web. 

6. Working of the World Wide Web The working of the World Wide Web is based on the  client-server  model. The client is the user machine, requesting documents from a server. A web server is a software system that guides web pages users request. Web servers hold all the websites. When requested by the users (client), the servers transfer web pages or information to the network computers of users. The browser built on the user’s computer permits users to access their found documents. Much like someone lives on rent in a home, a website takes up and stays stored on a computer. The site owner pays the hosting price for the same domain and hosts the server while the user requests their web pages. The WWW starts working when you open your browser and enter a URL in the address bar or check Google.

7. Web Browser A software application used to access information on the World Wide Web is called a Web Browser. When a user requests some information, the web browser fetches the data from a web server and then displays the webpage on the user’s screen. 

8. History of Web Browser “ World Wide Web ”  was the first web browser created by Tim Berners Lee in 1990. This is completely different from the World Wide Web that we use today  In 1993, the  “Mosaic”  web browser was released. It had the feature of adding images and an innovative graphical interface. It was the “the world’s first popular browser” After this, in 1994, Marc Andreessen started working on a new web browser, which was released and was named  “Netscape Navigator” In 1995,  “Internet Explorer”  was launched by Microsoft. It soon overtook as the most popular web browser In 2002,  “Mozilla Firefox”  was introduced which was equally as competent as Internet Explorer Apple too launched a web browser in the year 2003 and named it  “Safari” . This browser is commonly used in Apple devices only and not popular with other devices Finally, in the year 2008, Google released “Chrome” and within a time span of 3 years it took over all the other existing browsers and is one of the most commonly used web browsers across the world

9. Functions of Web Browser The main function is to retrieve information from the World Wide Web and making it available for users Visiting any website can be done using a web browser. When a URL is entered in a browser, the web server takes us to that website It makes Internet surfing easy as once we reach a website we can check the hyperlinks and get more and more useful data online Browsers uses internal cache which gets stored and the user can open the same webpage time and again without losing extra data  Multiple webpages can be opened at the same time on a web browser Options like back, forward, reload, stop reload, home, etc. are available on these web browsers, which make using them easy and convenient .

10. Types of Web Browser 1. World Wide Web The first web browser ever, launched in 1990 Later named “Nexus” to avoid confusion with World Wide Web Had basic features and less interactive in terms of graphical interface 2. Mosaic It was the second web browser launched in 1993 Had a better graphical interface. Images, text and graphics The team which was responsible for creating Mosaic was lead by Marc Andreessen. It was named “the world’s first popular browser”

11. 3. Netscape Navigator It was released in 1994 and became the dominant browser in terms of usage More versions of this browser were launched by Netscape It had allowed free usage for non-commercial purposes 4 . Internet Explorer It was launched in 1995 by Microsoft By 2003, it has attained almost 95% of usage and had become the most popular browsers of all It was included in the Microsoft Windows operating system In 2015, it was replaced with “Microsoft Edge”, as it became the default browser on Windows 10

12. 5. Firefox It was introduced in 2002 and was developed by Mozilla and became the dominant browser during 2003-04 This browser was also made available for mobile phones, tablets, etc . 6 . Google Chrome It was launched in 2008 by Google. Multiple features from old browsers were amalgamated to form better features To save computers from malware, Google developed the ad-blocking feature to keep the user data safe and secure Incognito mode is provided where private searching is available where no cookies or history is saved. Till date, it has the best user interface

13. Search Engine V/s Web Browser Benchmark Search engine Web browser What is it? A type of website that users can use in order to search for the information they require. A software that allows users to view the required information from web pages or HTML files present on the web servers.  Does it have its own database? Yes No Is installation required? No Yes Is it independent? No. It is dependent on a web browser. Yes. Components It uses Graphical Interface to help users experience an interactive online session on the WWW (World Wide Web). It has three components, such as search index, crawler, and search algorithm. Example Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. Chrome, Firefox, Opera, etc.

14. Search Engine A search engine is a software that brings to user relevant information(which they search) from the vast library of data available on World Wide Web. Users can search for multiple things including queries, documents, images, videos, webpages, and other content on a search engine. Search engines are build in such a way that they effectively generate the required information by crawling across the web and searching from the available databases on internet.

15. History of Search Engines Archie was the first well developed search engine in the year 1990. It used to search files by matching their names and indexing on FTP server. In 1992 Veronica search engine was developed. Later in 1993 W3Catalog and Aliweb were formed which were web search engines. WebCrawler search engine was the first to allow users search keywords. Finally in 1994, the search engine Yahoo! was developed which gained immense popularity. In 1998 when Google was founded as till now is the most used and preferred browser all across the globe.

16. Architecture of Search Engine Web crawlers – As the name suggests these acts as spiders which crawl all over the web to collect required information. These are special bots that search throughout the internet and accumulates data using various links. Database – It is a collection of data which is gathered by the web crawlers after searching throughout the world wide web. Search Interface – It provides a medium or interface for users so that they can access and search on the database for required information .

17. Working of a Search Engine W hen a user searches for a particular data, the web crawlers scan or crawl through the data available on web and gather all the relevant information ( Crawling ) . Then, the gathered information is organized in the form of catalog or database so that the relevant web pages can be selected quickly. The search engine then picks up the most relevant results according to the ranking and finally displays it in the results page or SERP . It is quite a technical process, but all this happens so quickly that user gets the results as soon as they search something on the search engine.

18. Advantages of Search Engines Search engines have made it possible to navigate through the internet. Even a person without any technical knowledge is able to use a search engine for solving a query. The quick and efficient responses of search engine make it easier for a user to immediately get result for their search. A search engine not only supports text results but also results like images, videos, maps, documents and various other formats, hence offering users a one stop solution. In today’s time people are using search engines not only for technical purposes but also for researches, educational purposes and even in day-to-day life. The user-friendly interface, organized results, customization features and diversity of search results makes search engines one the most essential tool for surfing on internet.

19. Examples of Popularly Used Search Engines Google – It is the most popularly and widely used search engine with an attractive an user-friendly interface and a versatile library of features which makes it first choice for maximum users when it comes to search engines. Bing – Founded in 2009 by Microsoft, Bing is quite similar to other search engines. It also allows users to search through images. Yahoo – It was among the earliest used search engines. However, its popularity has declined over time. Earlier Yahoo offered a platform called “Yahoo answers” where users could ask or answer various questions. Baidu , DuckDuckGo and Yandex are some other popular emerging browsers in today’s time.