Using a Browser is very easy. To get here you've already figured out the essential skill and that is clicking a link. Click here.
In the section that follows we present a brief history of the Internet and how it works.
First, some clarification on the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW)-are they different or the same? Although often used interchangeably to describe the world network of computers, the two are in fact different. The Internet is that vast world-wide collection of computers and computer networks that are connected to each other for the purpose of exchanging information. The World Wide Web arose after the Internet, and operates on it as a kind of service enhancement, much like e-mail or news servers. To understand this, let's review a little bit of history.
The Internet began in the late 1960's as a way of decentralizing military and scientific information networks in the event of a nuclear attack. Should one site be destroyed, others would survive. Funded by the Department of Defense in 1969, the first sites were located at UCLA, Stanford, UC Santa Barbara, and the University of Utah. Throughout the seventies, the network grew rapidly, each year seeing the inclusion of more and more universities, who saw it as an invaluable way for scientists and scholars to share research and information. During the eighties, the network expanded abroad, connecting to emerging networks in Europe, Japan, and the United Kingdom. By the late 1980s the number of host computers participating in the now world-wide "Internet" network numbered over 100,000.
Over the years various services were implemented to enhance the system's usefulness and to satisfy user's needs. For example, users of the Internet wanted ways to efficiently exchange messages, to organize and index data, to search for and transfer information, and to exchange opinions and ideas with others on the Net who might share similar interests. They also needed a way to easily "browse" the Internet, and a way to integrate pictures, graphics, and sound in the data they worked with.
E-mail was the earliest widely used service on the Internet. In fact, many users employ the Internet for nothing but this. The great advantage of e-mail is that it allows you to communicate quickly to anyone, anywhere in the world. Although software programs exist that do nothing but facilitate e-mail on the Internet, most Web browsers have taken over this function.
One of the first needs that arose on the Internet was for ways to organize the information it contained. The whole network wouldn't be worth very much if there were not ways of quickly finding what you're looking for. Over the years a number of crucial directories and search engines have been developed to help users locate information. You may have already heard of several-Yahoo, Magellan, Web-Crawler, Lycos, InfoSeek, and Excite, to mention a few. None is exhaustive, and each has its own particular area of application. Using them is easy and straightforward and once you know what each does, you will have no trouble locating whatever you're looking for. A browser provides instant access to all of these directories and search engines. We examine these search engines in detail in "Moving Around the World Wide Web."
In 1992, researchers at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, introduced the first Web server. With it came a whole new way of using the Internet, one that has permitted tens of millions of ordinary people around the world to access an information network they otherwise would never have known existed.
Browser programs on Web servers use a language called HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) that permits several important enhancements in using the Internet. Principally it allows for the linking of Web sites through what are termed hyperlinks. These let you jump from one Web site to another simply by clicking on a piece of hypertext embedded in the Web page. Informational resources that once displayed in stark, old fashioned typewriter font, filling the screen line after line like an ancient black and white telegram, now come with color, sound, and animation that can blow your socks off.
Essentially, what Web technology has done is to provide an extremely alluring environment in which to use Internet resources. It offers a way of interacting with the Internet and of displaying information that is intuitive, easily learned, and enjoyable. How does it work? As mentioned, Web technology is implemented through dedicated computers called Web servers that are connected to the Internet. These servers allow companies, organizations, and ordinary people to create and display something called Web pages, which are the defining product of Web technology. When you understand what a Web page is and does, you understand what the World Wide Web is and does.
In a way, browsing Web pages on the Internet is like walking through an endless magic Art Gallery, where the paintings on the wall are constantly changing and multiplying. Web pages come in every conceivable configuration, limited only by the imagination and skill of their creators. The thing about Web pages is that anyone can have one. Although you may think that a Web page is beyond your status as a novice Web user, the day will soon come when you will see your own Web page advertising your business, exhibiting your hobbies and interests, or just advertising you to the world. Soon after you'll be receiving comments from people all of over the world who have read your Web page with interest.
Through Web pages information providers can now reach millions in a way that is appealing and simple to understand.
Familiar offerings from television are now available free on the web in a new interactive format.
You can visit Sea World from the comfort of your computer.
As it displays on your computer, a Web page appears to be nothing more than an aesthetically pleasing mix of graphics and text, sometimes accompanied with sound and animation. However, what you are really looking at is a subtle creation known as a hypertext, or hypermedia, document. A hypertext document is one that contains embedded links to other documents or Web pages. Should you click on one of these links using your mouse, the browser will immediately transport you to that other Web page. In hypertext documents, links are simply underlined or differently colored words or phrases on the Web page. In hypermedia documents graphics (pictures and icons) are often used as hyperlinks to other Web pages and documents. Links are easy to identify: when you move the mouse pointer onto one, the pointer changes into a hand.
A Web page link has two components-the anchor, which is the highlighted word or picture you see on the page, and the associated URL reference, which represents the Internet address of the document or Web page that is being linked. When you click on the anchor, your Browser reads the address stored in the URL reference and goes to that Web site.
A single Web page can have dozens of links to other Web pages and documents, many of which may not be on the same Web server. You may be viewing a Web page located in Mexico City, say. On it you click a link that references additional material related to the same subject. Instantly you are transported to another Web site, perhaps in Egypt, Norway or Russia. Subsequently on that new page, you click on another link that takes you to Brazil or Hong Kong.
In this way you can jump all over the world, from Web page to Web page, seeing documents related to the subject you are pursuing. It's called "surfing the Web." Conceivably, you could continue selecting links and never get back to the page you started from.
This jumping from link to link creates what has come to be known as the World Wide Web, or simply "the Web." Innumerable Web pages, residing on hundreds of thousands of Web servers, collectively comprise a network that floats like a virtual spider's web over the Internet, linking every page with every other page, no matter the distance. This subtle superimposition of one network (the Web) onto another network (the Internet) is what has given rise to the popular confusion between the two.
With the creation of Web technology, there simultaneously arose the need for software that would interface with it. Thus was born the Web browser, a software program whose function is to retrieve, display, and manipulate Web pages, and to execute the links between them. Today, many Web browsers are available, some more powerful than others.
The components of a Browser are easy to understand and to use.
When loaded into your computer, its display looks like this:
Top Menu Drop-down menus provide commands for searching, saving, printing, and marking web pages, and for configuring program operation.
Toolbar The Toolbar buttons activate frequently used command features (all duplicated in the Top Menu). You can print, save to file, move forward and backward, return to the start page, stop transfers, send e-mail, download files, check the news page, and more.
Address Bar This space lets you enter the URL reference (Internet address) of a web page or other Internet site which you wish to access. It also displays the URL address for the web page currently displayed. Clicking the down arrow at the right end of the bar displays the URLs that have been entered manually during the current session. Clicking on any URL automatically inserts it into the Address Bar. The Address Bar can be turned off when younger children use the computer thus preventing accessing to adult oriented material.
Transfer Icon An icon that, when in motion, indicates that data is being downloaded from a remote Internet site to your Browser.
Status LineStatus Line A line for displaying messages that indicate the current status of a web connection-e.g., "Connecting…" or "Transferring…"
Page DisplayPage Display The area in which the content of web pages is displayed. The page display contains the most recently requested web page. Viewing pages larger than the screen area may require using the horizontal and vertical scroll bars.
As you will find out, loading web pages with elaborate graphics can take a long time, even when you're operating with a 28.8 modem on a Pentium 150. This can be annoying, especially when the graphics aren't that important. There are a couple of things you can do to speed things up:
In this chapter we have presented an overview of the Internet and the World Wide Web, and have examined the basic components of a Browser. With this understanding we are now ready to examine how the two function together. In the following chapters we show how to access Web pages, search the Internet, and send E-mail.
Also see:
Forget
about battle of the browsers
Tools for Web pages, intranets compete for buyers' attention. San Jose Mercury.
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