The Difference Between the Internet and World Wide Web

Updated August 07, 2018 / Posted June 24, 2010

By Vangie Beal

Related Terms

Many people use the terms Internet and World Wide Web (aka. the Web) interchangeably, but in fact the two terms are not synonymous. The Internet and the Web are two separate but related things.

What is The Internet?

The internet is a massive network of networks, a networking infrastructure. It connects millions of computers together globally, forming a network in which any computer can communicate with any other computer as long as they are both connected to the internet. Information that travels over the internet does so via a variety of languages known as protocols.

Quick Points about The Internet:

It is a global network connecting millions of computers.
The internet is decentralized.
Each internet computer is independent.
There are a variety of ways to access the internet.
There are more than 3.5 billion internet users in the world.

What is The Web (World Wide Web)?

The World Wide Web, or simply web, is a way of accessing information over the medium of the internet. It is an information-sharing model that is built on top of the internet. The web uses the HTTP protocol, only one of the languages spoken over the internet, to transmit data. Web services, which use HTTP to allow applications to communicate in order to exchange business logic, use the the web to share information. The web also utilizes browsers, such as Internet Explorer or Firefox, to access Web documents called webpages that are linked to each other via hyperlinks. Web documents also contain graphics, sounds, text and video.

Quick Points about The Web:

It is a system of internet servers that support specially formatted documents.
Documents are formatted in a markup language that supports links to other documents.
You can jump from one document to another simply by clicking on hot spots (hyperlinks).
Applications called web browsers that make it easy to access the World Wide Web.
There are more than 1,275,000,000 websites.

The Web is a Portion of The Internet

The web is just one of the ways that information can be disseminated over the internet. The internet, not the web, is also used for email, which relies on SMTP, Usenet news groups, instant messaging and FTP. So the web is just a portion of the Internet, albeit a large portion, but the two terms are not synonymous and should not be confused.

DID YOU KNOW... In March 1972 Ray Tomlinson wrote the first basic email program. In 1976 Queen Elizabeth II sent an email.
(Source: Brief Timeline of the Internet)