On World Wide Web day, know the difference between the Internet and WWW

Today, August 1, is World Wide Web day. We take this moment to answer one of the most confusing questions online: What is the difference between the internet and www? Find out now.

Know the difference between the internet and www. (Pixabay)

If you are reading this, then it is because the world wide web exists. Commonly known as the web, this information system was invented by English computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee while working at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in 1989. And on the same infrastructure, every single website and all digital assets exist. But you might argue that the real reason you are reading this is because of the internet. While you would not be wrong, there is an important distinction between both, which many seem to be confused about. And that's why, we take a look at how the internet and www are different on world wide web day today, August 1.

internet vs WWW

If the world wide web is a town square with all the fancy stores and restaurants, then the internet is the highway that connects us to that place. That is the most simplified difference between the two. But if you are looking for something more technical, let us get into it.

First, we must understand what both of these terms represent. The internet is a globally connected network system that is threading together worldwide communication and access to data resources. It is built upon the infrastructure of a huge collection of personal, public, business, academic, and government networks.

On the other hand, the world wide web or www is an information system that allows anyone to retrieve large arrays of information as documents online. The web is also capable of keeping related information, or information that has been created together or affiliated to the same source, at the same place so they can be searched and accessed by the means of hypertexts or hypermedia links (hyperlinks).

There are some differences between the two as well.

1. While the internet connects one computer to all other computers that are also on the same network, the www is an information storage that can be accessed online.

2. The internet is an infrastructure whereas the world wide web is a service build on top of the infrastructure.

3. The relationship between the internet and the world wide web is that of the hardware and the software.

4. The first version of the Internet was known as ARPANET. In its earliest days, WWW was known as NSFNET.

5. One most critically important difference is that while Internet uses IP address, WWW uses HTTP.