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Internet, Browsers & E-mail

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Subtopic 1 of 4·Browsers, search engines, downloading and uploading →

Internet, WWW, URL and DNS

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The Internet is a global 'network of networks' that grew out of ARPANET (1969, US DoD project; first nodes UCLA and Stanford). The TCP/IP protocol suite became its standard on 1 January 1983. The World Wide Web is one service running on the Internet - the system of interlinked web pages invented by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 at CERN (with the first browser/editor, WorldWideWeb). Other services: e-mail, FTP, VoIP, streaming.

An ISP (Internet Service Provider - Jio, Airtel, BSNL) sells you connectivity and assigns an IP address. The DNS (Domain Name System) is the Internet's phonebook: it converts a name like www.ssc.gov.in into its numeric IP address (this translation is its exam definition).

URL (Uniform Resource Locator) parts: https://www.ssc.gov.in:443/exams/index.html = protocol + subdomain + domain + top-level domain (TLD .in) + port + path + file. Common TLDs: .com (commercial), .org (organisation), .edu (education), .gov (government), .in (India). Bandwidth = data-carrying capacity (bps/Kbps/Mbps); broadband = always-on high-speed access (fibre, DSL, 4G/5G).

📖 Notes🧩 4 question types🎯 16 practice Q

Detailed notes

Internet and WWW — related but not the same

The Internet is a worldwide network of networks: millions of computers and phones connected so they can exchange data. It grew out of ARPANET, a 1969 project of the US Defence Department (its first two nodes were UCLA and Stanford). The World Wide Web (WWW) is a service that runs on the Internet — the collection of hyperlinked pages read through a browser. It was invented by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 at CERN. E-mail and file transfer are other services on the same Internet. So: Internet = the road system, WWW = one kind of traffic on it.

URL — the address of a page

A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) names every page. Read it in parts:

https://www.example.in/Results/2026.html

  • https:// — the protocol (rules for the conversation). HTTPS is the secure version (encrypted); plain HTTP is not.
  • www.example.in — the domain name of the server (www = world wide web host prefix, .in = India country code; .com, .org, .gov, .edu are others).
  • /Results/2026.html — the path to the exact page or file on that server.

The DNS (Domain Name System) translates the typed name into the server's IP address — the numeric identity (like 142.250.183.14) that machines actually use. DNS is the phonebook of the Internet: you ask for a name, it returns the number.

Who does what on the net

PlayerJob
ISP (Internet Service Provider)sells you the connection (Jio, Airtel, BSNL)
DNS servername to IP address translation
DHCP serverassigns an IP address to your device
Web serverstores pages and serves them to browsers

Classic trap: DNS resolves names; DHCP assigns addresses.

Small facts that recur

  • IP address — a device's numeric address; IPv4 has four blocks of 0-255.
  • TCP/IP is the standard protocol suite of the Internet (ARPANET adopted it in 1983).
  • Bandwidth is the data-carrying capacity of a link; latency is the delay.
  • VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) carries phone calls over the Internet.
  • A web portal is a site that gathers many services on one page; a website is a set of related web pages under one domain.

How the pieces cooperate (one page load)

  1. You type a URL in the browser.
  2. DNS turns the domain into the server's IP address.
  3. Your request travels over TCP/IP to the web server, which sends the page back.
  4. The browser renders the HTML and displays the page — all in about a second. Every exam question on DNS, URL or ISP is one stop on this journey, so picture it as a single delivery trip: name translated (DNS), address found (IP), parcel carried (TCP/IP), delivered by the shop (web server).

Quick revision

  • Internet = network of networks (from ARPANET, 1969); WWW = hyperlinked pages (Berners-Lee, 1989).
  • URL = protocol + domain + path; https is the secure protocol.
  • DNS: name to IP; DHCP: gives IP; ISP: sells the connection.
  • TCP/IP = the Internet's protocol suite; VoIP = calls over the Internet.

Types of questions asked

Every way this subtopic shows up in exams — how to recognise it, the formula or logic to use, and a solved example.

Type 1: Internet vs WWW and ARPANET historyvery common4 practice Q
How to spot it:

'The Internet is', 'WWW was invented by', 'the year of ARPANET' or a statement question mixing the Internet with the Web.

  1. Internet = the global network of networks, born from ARPANET (1969).
  2. WWW = the hyperlinked-page service, invented by Tim Berners-Lee, 1989, CERN.
  3. The Web is a service ON the Internet (with e-mail, FTP); the two words are not interchangeable.

Example: The World Wide Web was invented in 1989 by:

Tim Berners-Lee at CERN — the Internet itself is older, growing from ARPANET of 1969.

Type 2: URL anatomyvery common3 practice Q
How to spot it:

A URL is given and a part is asked: the protocol, the domain, the country code, the path — or the full form of URL.

  1. Split at the slashes: https:// + domain + path.
  2. The part before the first single slash after the address is the protocol; the name before the first single slash is the domain; what follows is the path.
  3. Ending codes: .com commercial, .org organisation, .gov government, .edu education, .in India.

Example: In https://www.mysite.in/exams/ssc.html, the domain name is:

www.mysite.in — https is the protocol, /exams/ssc.html is the path to the page.

Type 3: DNS, DHCP and ISP rolescommon3 practice Q
How to spot it:

'DNS converts ___ to ___', 'which server assigns IP addresses', 'who provides the Internet connection' — role-matching of the three servers.

  1. DNS = Domain Name System: domain name to IP address (the phonebook).
  2. DHCP = Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol: ASSIGNS IP addresses to devices.
  3. ISP sells the connection. The swap of DNS and DHCP jobs is the planted error.

Example: The server that converts a website name into its IP address is the:

DNS server — assigning addresses is DHCP's job; resolving names is DNS's.

Type 4: Internet full forms and firstscommon2 practice Q
How to spot it:

'Full form of HTTP/HTML/URL/ISP/VoIP' or wrongly matched pairs where one word of the expansion is changed.

  1. HTTP = HyperText Transfer Protocol; HTML = HyperText Markup Language; URL = Uniform Resource Locator; ISP = Internet Service Provider; VoIP = Voice over Internet Protocol; WWW = World Wide Web.
  2. Check word by word — 'Hyper Transfer Text Protocol' style traps are common.
  3. HTML is a MARKUP language, not a programming language.

Example: The full form of HTML is:

HyperText Markup Language — the language in which web pages are written; it is a markup language, not a programming language.

Shortcut tricks

⚡ Internet vs WWW

The Internet = hardware network (cables, routers, servers); the WWW = content service (hyperlinked pages) riding on it. Invented later (1989) by ONE man - Berners-Lee; the Internet is older (1969 ARPANET).

Example: Who invented the World Wide Web?

Tim Berners-Lee (CERN, 1989).

⚡ DNS = phonebook

DNS translates names to numbers - never 'assigns IPs' (that is DHCP) and never 'sends mail' (that is SMTP). Any question phrased 'converts domain names into IP addresses' = DNS.

Example: What does DNS do?

Resolves domain names into IP addresses.

Where students lose marks

  • Treating WWW and the Internet as the same thing.

  • Saying DNS assigns IP addresses - DHCP assigns; DNS resolves names to IPs.

  • Dating the Internet to 1989 - that is the WWW; ARPANET was 1969.

Practice sets — 16 questions

Sets of 10, mixed across the question types above. Each answer comes with a step-by-step explanation.

Topic test · 10 questions

Suggested time 5 min · wrong answers go to your mistake notebook automatically.