Today’s Goal is to …

Become familiar with the World Wide Web
Become familiar with the Web’s structure and how the Web works
Learn about its genesis, its evolution, and its future
About its impact on computing, society, commerce
3.1 Browser
A browser is an application program that provides a way to look at and interact with all
the information on the World Wide Web. The word "browser" seems to have originated
prior to the Web as a generic term for user interfaces that let you browse (navigate
through and read) text files online. By the time the first Web browser with a graphical
user interface was generally available (Mosaic, in 1993), the term seemed to apply to Web
content, too. Technically, a Web browser is a client program that uses the Hypertext
Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to make requests of Web servers throughout the Internet on
behalf of the browser user.
3.2 URL
URL (Uniform Resource Locator, previously Universal Resource Locator) - pronounced
YU-AHR-EHL or, in some quarters, UHRL - is the address of a file (resource)
accessible on the Internet. The type of file or resource depends on the Internet
application protocol. Using the World Wide Web's protocol, the Hypertext Transfer
Protocol (HTTP), the resource can be an HTML page (like the one you're reading), an
image file, or any other file supported by HTTP. The URL contains the name of the
protocol required to access the resource, a domain name that identifies a specific
computer on the Internet, and a pathname (hierarchical description of a file location) on
the computer.
On the Web (which uses the Hypertext Transfer Protocol), an example of a URL is:
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt
Which describes a Web page to be accessed with an HTTP (Web browser) application
that is located on a computer named www.ietf.org. The pathname for the specific file in
that computer is /rfc/rfc2396.txt.
An HTTP URL can be for any Web page, not just a home page, or any individual file.
Examples:
http://paperpk.info
http://www.hindilinks4u.biz
http://www.zeewatch.net
3.3 What is a Web site?
A Web site is a related collection of World Wide Web (WWW) files that includes a
beginning file called a home page. A company or an individual tells you how to get to
their Web site by giving you the address of their home page. From the home page, you
can get to all the other pages on their site. For example, the Web site for IBM has the
home page address of http://www.ibm.com. IBM's home page address leads to
thousands of pages but a web site can also be just of few pages.