📡 From Click to Screen: How the Web Really Works

Introduction to the Web

I mean, I plugged in my RJ-45 cable to my Lenovo ThinkPad T480s to quickly stream the next episode of Jujutsu Kaisen — a Japanese anime. Within seconds, I was watching a Full HD episode with subtitles, streamed from a database over 2000 kilometers away. It’s not magic; it’s engineering at work. Let me explain, if you don’t mind.

What we casually call “the internet” is actually a vast network of physical infrastructure — thick fiber optic cables laid underground and across oceans, connecting computers and servers all over the world. And the rest? That’s where things get interesting.

Let’s start with a simple question: Where is Jujutsu Kaisen actually stored?

The answer: on a hard drive. But not the kind sitting inside your personal laptop. Instead, it’s stored on an enterprise-grade hard disk drive (HDD) mounted inside a rack — alongside thousands of others — in a climate-controlled building known as a data center.

A data center is the digital world’s beating heart. It’s a secure, always-on facility where countless servers (which are just powerful computers) store and process the content we stream, download, or interact with. These servers respond to your requests by sending data — like your anime episode — through a series of network hops, routers, and switches, eventually reaching your device.

The speed and quality of that delivery can depend on several things: your ISP (Internet Service Provider), local network congestion, the server’s physical location, or even the content delivery network (CDN) being used to optimize the route.

But at its core, what just happened is this: your laptop made a request, that request traveled thousands of kilometers across fiber cables, landed in a server rack inside a data center, pulled up a file from a hard drive, and streamed it back to you — in less time than it takes to boil water.

Magic? No. That’s just the internet doing its job.

How Jujutsu Kaizen gets to your screens

I’m almost certain the first question you’re dying to ask is:
“What actually happens when I type https://crunchyroll.com into my browser?"

Good question.

Now imagine you made a tiny typo and typed https://crunchroll.com instead (notice the missing “y”). You’d likely land on a totally different page—or maybe get an error. So, what exactly is responsible for making sure you end up on the right website?

Enter: The Domain Name System (DNS)

Think of the DNS (Domain Name System) as the internet’s phonebook or a global logbook of all registered websites. It’s what translates human-friendly web addresses (like crunchyroll.com) into machine-friendly IP addresses (like 192.0.2.1). These IPs point to the physical servers where the actual website lives.

So when you type https://crunchyroll.com, your computer asks the DNS,

“Hey, where can I find this Crunchyroll place?”

And the DNS responds with the correct IP address — telling your browser where to go.

N.B:
If Crunchyroll’s server is physically located in Atlanta, Georgia, and you’re accessing the site for the first time from Atlanta, the content will likely load faster for you than for someone visiting from, say, Ikeja, Lagos — even if you both have decent internet.

Why? It’s not (just) about internet speed. It’s about proximity to the server.

When a site is visited for the first time, the DNS finds the server location and helps direct your request there. But that trip takes time — especially if the server is far away. This is why many companies use CDNs (Content Delivery Networks) to cache content closer to users around the globe. More on that soon.

Let’s Talk Content Delivery Networks(CDNs)

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is basically a system of distributed servers around the world that work together to deliver content to users quickly and efficiently. Think of them like mini Crunchyroll outposts scattered across the globe.

So, how do they work?

Let’s say you’re in Ikeja, Lagos, and you visit Crunchyroll for the first time to stream Jujutsu Kaisen. Your request travels across the world to reach Crunchyroll’s main server — let’s assume it’s based in Atlanta, Georgia. The server processes your request and sends the content back to you.

But here’s the cool part:
Along with that response comes a header like this:

Cache-Control: max-age=3600

That means the content you just received can be cached (or saved) for one hour.

Now, your browser might save it, but more importantly, a nearby CDN server — maybe one in Johannesburg, South Africa — also saves a copy of that content.

So the next time you (or anyone else near Lagos) wants to watch the same episode, the request doesn’t have to travel all the way back to Atlanta. Instead, it grabs the content from the much closer Johannesburg server.

No more waiting for data to cross oceans. The CDN brings it to your digital doorstep.

What about security? Great question. You might be wondering:

“If the content is being copied and sent through all these servers… how do I know it hasn’t been tampered with?”

That’s where HTTPS (and newer protocols like HTTP/2) come in. They help ensure that your connection is secure, encrypted, and authenticated. So even if your data passes through multiple servers, it’s locked tight, making it nearly impossible for a malicious actor to alter it without detection.

But wait, how is my computer sure that the data being sent from the server has not been intercepted by a malicious person.

🔐 Web Security Matters..

So far, we’ve talked about how Jujutsu Kaisen gets to your screen — through servers, DNS, and CDNs — but now let’s address something critical: security.

When your device sends a request to a website like Crunchyroll, how do you make sure no one’s eavesdropping on the connection? Imagine sending a secret letter in the mail — you wouldn’t want someone reading or altering it before it gets to the recipient. That’s where encryption comes in.

✅ Enter HTTPS

You’ve probably noticed that most websites start with https:// instead of just http://. That tiny “s” at the end stands for secure, and it means your connection is encrypted.

• HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) is the foundation for data communication on the web.

• HTTPS (HTTP Secure) is HTTP + SSL/TLS encryption, which ensures that the communication between your browser and the server is private and safe from tampering.

🧰 What is SSL/TLS?

• SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) and its modern version, TLS (Transport Layer Security), are encryption protocols.

• When you connect to https://crunchyroll.com, your browser and the server perform a "handshake"—a quick exchange of encryption keys and certificates—to agree on how to encrypt your data.

• Once the handshake is complete, your data is encrypted, meaning it’s turned into gibberish that only the server and your browser can decode.

This protects you from:

• Man-in-the-middle attacks (someone intercepting your data in transit)

• Data theft (like passwords, credit card info, etc.)

• Content tampering (someone changing the video you’re streaming or injecting malware)

🏎 What about HTTP/2?

Now that you’re connected securely, speed is the next priority.

HTTP/2 is a newer version of HTTP, and it’s designed to make websites load faster and perform better, especially for modern content like streaming video.

Some of its advantages:

• Multiplexing: Multiple files (like video, subtitles, thumbnails) can be requested and sent at the same time over a single connection.

• Header compression: Makes requests lighter and faster.

• Server Push: The server can send things before your browser even asks — like subtitles or next-episode previews.

Combined with HTTPS, HTTP/2 delivers your Jujutsu Kaisen episode securely and efficiently. Now that brings us to the next important question:
A 45-minute, 1080p H.265 (HEVC) anime video can range from 600MB to 6GB, depending on bitrate and encoding.

So… are we sending 600MB across the internet in one huge chunk?Not at all.
Streaming is smarter than that. Welcome to the world of chunked data delivery and adaptive streaming.

🎬 Streaming: Not One Big File, But Many Small Pieces

When you hit play on an anime episode, you’re not downloading the entire video at once. Instead, the video is broken into small segments — usually 2 to 10 seconds each. Think of it like slicing a cake into many small bites rather than trying to swallow the whole thing.

These pieces are sent one at a time over the network. While you’re watching one segment, the next 2–15 seconds of video are already being buffered (downloaded) in the background. This results in faster startup time, minimal buffering, and more seamless control.

So essentially, you’re receiving something like 1KB to 20MB per second, depending on your internet speed. It’s kind of like downloading the video — except you’re watching it live as it downloads.

The technology responsible for this? That would be HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) or DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP) — both widely used by platforms like Crunchyroll, Netflix, and YouTube.

📉 Compression Is Key

But technology has evolved for a reason.
Let’s face it: streaming 6GB of video, even on a decent 20Mbps connection, can still result in hiccups. That’s where compression becomes crucial.

Modern codecs like H.265 (HEVC) allow a 6GB video to be compressed to 3–4GB with minimal to no visible loss in quality. That’s a huge win for both the provider (less bandwidth) and the user (faster playback).

📶 Adaptive Bitrate Streaming

Typically, streaming services offer you the choice of video quality — like 360p, 720p, or 1080p. But more often than not, the video player auto-selects the best resolution based on your network conditions.

• On a strong and stable network? You get smooth 1080p or even 4K.

• On a weaker or unstable connection? It drops to 480p or 720p to ensure continuous playback.

This is called adaptive bitrate streaming, and it makes sure you keep watching — without annoying pauses or quality drops.

📝 What About Subtitles and Audio Tracks?

Subtitles and audio tracks are actually separate files. They’re not burned into the video stream but are delivered alongside it.

• Subtitles are usually in text-based formats like .vtt or .srt, which sync with the video playback.

• Audio can come in different languages and qualities and is streamed independently, allowing you to switch languages or enable audio descriptions without reloading the entire video.

Your media player (like Crunchyroll’s web player or a mobile app) is smart enough to combine the video, audio, and subtitle tracks in real time, keeping them perfectly synced — thanks to metadata and time codes.

🎥 Media Players: The Unsung Hero

All of this magic — segmenting, buffering, switching resolutions, syncing audio/subtitles — is orchestrated by the media player you see in your browser or app.

Think of the media player as the conductor of the orchestra. It reads the manifest files from HLS or DASH (basically a playlist of segments), determines your connection quality, fetches the right chunks of video/audio, and plays them in perfect order.

Conclusion

It also listens for user actions — like pause, seek, change audio, or toggle subtitles — and adapts everything accordingly.

So now, I sit back, headphones on, completely immersed in a fantasy world — powered by miles of fiber optic cable, complex protocols, smart algorithms, and secure connections — all working together in milliseconds.

The next time you hit “Play,” just remember: you’re witnessing one of the greatest engineering feats of our time. And all you had to do was click a button.

Thanks for reading — and happy streaming! 🍿✨