When talking about computers, many people use the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) interchangeably. In reality, the terms are not interchangeable or synonymous. The Internet and the WWW are related, yet separate, things.
Let us take a brief look at the differences by examining the chart below:
Internet vs. WWW
| Internet | World Wide Web (WWW) |
|---|---|
| Global network of computers | Subset of the Internet |
| Information travels through multiple communication channels called protocols | Primarily only uses Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) |
| Countless number of languages used during communication | Primarily uses Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) |
The Internet (or ‘Net’) is actually a large network comprised of networks—a network infrastructure—that was originally developed in the 1960s. The result is the connection of millions of computers on a global scale. In short, any computer can communicate with any other computer as long as it is connected to the Internet. The information that is transferred over the Internet does so by a variety of languages that are known as protocols. The Internet is used for e-mail, instant messaging, and FTP to name a few functionalities.
The World Wide Web (or ‘Web’ or WWW) is a medium for accessing information over the Internet. Developed in 1989, it is a model of information sharing that is actually built on the structure of the Internet. We can therefore ascertain that the Internet could exist without the WWW; however, the WWW could not exist without the Internet. The WWW uses the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), one of the many languages of the Internet. The WWW also utilizes browsers such as Firefox and Internet Explorer to access documents called web pages written in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). Web pages can be linked together either in a linear or non-linear fashion to create a grouping of pages called a web site. These web pages also can contain graphics, video, and sound. It is important to realize that the WWW is just one of the many ways that information is disseminated over the Internet; albeit a large one.
In essence, the Internet is to the World Wide Web what Europe is to Great Britain. The World Wide Web is a smaller portion of the larger whole.
Additional information to help with distinguishing between the Internet and the World Wide Web can be found at Webopedia.
Source: University of North Carolina. 15 January 2006. 10 June 2006. http://www.unc.edu/~ldsmith/cclr
