The Internet: How it works and why it matters

January 1, 1983, is celebrated as the official birthday of the Internet. Computer networks used to communicate with each other before the Internet but did not have a standard way to communicate. The new protocol that gave birth to what we know as Internet today was the Transfer Control Protcol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).

IP, when combined with TCP helps the internet traffic find its destination. Every device connected to the internet is given a unique IP number, known as the IP address. This number can then be used to find the location of any internet-connected device worldwide.

Internet is not the same as the World Wide Web (WWW). While the Internet is the networking infrastructure that connects devices, the www is a way of accessing information using the Internet as the medium. Proposed by Tim Berners-Lee, www relied on the Hypertext Markup Language, (HTML), a hyperlink can point to any other HTML page or file on the internet.

To facilitate the transfer of this information through the internet, a protocol, Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) was developed, and then the Universal Resource Locator (URI) was designed. URI provides a unique address to the website while HTTP is the language computers use to communicate the HTML documents.

Ever wondered what happens behind the scenes when you access Google, YouTube, or any website on your browser? How does the browser open these websites within seconds? How the images/videos you see on these sites are transferred over the internet?

When you type in a web address into your browser and press Enter,

Step 1: Your PC or device is connected to the web through a modem or a router. These devices allow you to connect with other networks around the world. Your router enables multiple computers to join the same network while a modem connects to your ISP which provides you with either cable or DSL internet.

Step 2: Then you type in a web address, known as URL. Each website has its own unique URL that signals to your ISP where you want to go.

Step 3: Your query is pushed to the ISP which connects to several servers which store and send data.

Step 4: Next, your browser looks up the IP address for the domain name you typed into your search through DNS. DNS then translates the text-based domain name you type into a number-based IP address.

For example: google.com becomes 64.233.191.255

Step 5: Your browser sends a Hypertext Transfer Protocol(HTTP) request to the target server to send a copy of the website to the client using TCP/IP

Step 6: The server approves the request and sends a “200 OK“ message to your computer. Then, the server sends a website file to the browser in the form of data packets.

Step 7: As the browser reassembles the data packets, the website loads, allowing the user to access the website on their browser.