Page 15 - CA_165_V2.0_Flipbook
P. 15
WWW was introduced in 1989 by the English Physicist, Sir Tim Berners Lee. The web creators wanted
to create a simple way to provide and access different types of documents on the network, without
searching through indexes or directories of files or without copying documents from one computer to
another before viewing them. To do so, they established a way to ‘link’ documents that were stored in
different locations on different computers on the network but under a single frame and thus WWW
evolved.
The World Wide Web (WWW) is a service of information in a combination of text, photographs, graphics,
audio, video, etc. that are presented on the Internet. It allows the multimedia and hypertext files to be
displayed and linked on the Internet. Before WWW, Internet was mainly used to obtain textual information.
Due to its distinct features, the popularity of WWW is increasing day by day.
Features of WWW
Following are some of the features of WWW:
User-friendly: WWW resources are user-friendly and can be used easily with the help of web
browsers.
Hypertext and Hyperlinks: Hypertext coordinates communication and establishes link among web
pages that incorporate text, images, audio, visuals and dynamic links.
While browsing, some parts of the document are often highlighted by underlining or displayed in a
special colour. Such highlighted words that provide links are termed hyperlinks. WWW supports such
hypertext and hyperlink files and thus enables Internet surfing easier for the users.
Multimedia documents: Multimedia documents contain information in the form of audio, video,
graphics, animations and text which are viewed on web pages. WWW allows and supports the Internet
users to create, link or display multimedia web pages.
Interactive: WWW provides a graphical interface. It supports and enables easy and convenient
interaction between the users and the servers through hyperlinks and input boxes like radio buttons,
check boxes, text boxes, etc.
Accessibility: WWW is accessible by anyone irrespective of location, caste, community, nationality,
profession, physical disability, etc. A user just needs a computer, modem and Internet connection.
Caching: If a user revisits the same web page after a short interval, it may not be needed to recall
that data from the source web server. Caching enables to store data in memory. It allows to revisit or
re-browse the same website while operating on the same computer before switching it off.
If the locally cached data are current, it will be reused. In WWW, caching helps to reduce the quantum of
data for transfer (web traffic) on the Internet.
Web Servers
A web server is the principal computer or server that stores the contents of different websites. It provides
data and information to computers on request which are connected to it through the network via Internet.
In other words, it can be said that it is a computer that stores data and runs software that is designed to
send web pages in file format when requested by web browsers.
The server is usually a computer of high configuration i.e., with large storage capacity and high speed
processor that stores data and executes the instructions very fast.
Networking 13

