What Is The World-Wide Web?

The World-Wide Web (the Web) started as a way for research scientists to include pointers to the references to their work. It includes hypertext and hypermedia and can use any Internet service, including mail, file transfer and news.

The Web uses Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to send Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) documents between the client and the server computers. Each document has a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) which is its unique Internet address and which tells the client which server to contact.

Web client software is also called the browser or reader. You can run Web client software on an ordinary desktop or portable Macintosh and Windows computer, as long as you have a fast modem and a suitable Internet connection.