What does the World Wide Web require for the user?

Today, work on the Internet, many called the World Wide Web, which, in general, somewhat incorrectly, no one is surprised. But here to view the World Wide Web requires several mandatory conditions, which are not known to all novice users. So, let's see how exactly the tools we need.

What is the World Wide Web?

In fact, the term World Wide Web itself, now referred to as WWW's abbreviation, officially appeared back in 19989, when Tim Burns-Lee offered the world the use of, so to speak, a global and comprehensive project for the publication of hypertext documents linked together.

The same time applies to the appearance of the markup language HTML and the main identifiers of WWW and HTTP. Since then, the World Wide Web and received its secret name "World Wide Web." Documents are usually placed on physical servers or virtual web servers that are able not only to display documents actually created (pages), but also to generate them based on special scenarios. Hence the most simple conclusion: to view the World Wide Web you need to have support for these elements. Let's dwell on each of them separately.

What you need to view the World Wide Web: the first steps

It goes without saying that the initial condition for access to the global information space will require communication. According to the basic definition, these are services that are provided by a special service called a provider. It is he who is responsible for communication with the use of own servers and multichannel access to remote systems.

As already understood, without an Internet connection, there is no question of viewing pages. This means that you need a connection to view the World Wide Web. It can be either the connection of a single computer terminal or laptop, the creation of connections over a local network with the single access of all terminals to the Internet through a central server, the use of a wireless connection or a modem connection.

Browser

But this is not the only condition for viewing the World Wide Web. What else is required? One of the main elements of any system designed to work on the World Wide Web is the presence on the computer, laptop or even mobile gadget of a special program or several programs called Internet browsers.

Today they can be found quite a lot. The most popular are Opera, Google Chrome, Chromium, Mozilla Firefox, etc., as well as Internet Explorer, installed by default in any Windows operating system (in Windows 10 it's the Edge browser). About their basic settings in terms of additional elements, which are assumed by modern technologies, will be told a little later.

The exact address

So, we sorted out the browser. What else does the World Wide Web (WWW) need to know for sure? Of course, the so-called URL.

Compare it can be, for example, with the home address of the person's residence (very conditionally). Roughly speaking, each page is located on the server only if it is assigned a unique identifier (in our case, the location address, which is sometimes treated as a hyperlink concept). Conventionality is that in one apartment, for example, can live a few people, but for them all the address of residence is common. For pages or sites located on the same server, the main address will also be shared, but each page is additionally associated with a separate link, so as not to search among their number for the only one that has the necessary information. By the way, here it is worth paying attention that in the world there are no two identical addresses. In some ways, this is similar to the system for identifying computers using unique IDs.

Among the addresses of all types, you can select the standard ones, those that start with http: // www. (Simply www. Or without applying it after the first link), as well as addresses like https: // www., Corresponding to the entrance to the protected zone.

Support for ActiveX controls and add-ins

In addition to everything described, it should be borne in mind that in the general system of the World Wide Web for viewing you need to be able to use some additional elements that can be used on websites or web pages.

For example, in the "native" Windows browser it is support for ActiveX controls and executable scripts, which significantly expands the capabilities of not only the browser itself, but also the preservation of completely different information on the sites.

However, today it is considered that the most common add-on in the form of a special plug-in (additions) to browsers is Adobe Flash Player, responsible for the playback of a wide variety of audio and video formats on the web. As such, the program does not start in the browser (that is, you do not need to start the application manually, as it is for a normal executable EXE file). It starts automatically when you click on the appropriate link or when you click the play icon in the player window on the site.

Antivirus protection

Again, and that's not all. To view the World Wide Web requires the presence of powerful anti-virus software in the system. Well, if you use "OSes" like Linux or Mac OS X. For them and viruses, it does not exist, because in this environment, they simply do not work.

Another thing - Windows. Since their inception, viruses have become a real global problem. And if you previously could "grab" the virus from, say, a floppy disk, now self-copying viruses can be transmitted not only in local networks, but also present as threats only with the standard transition to a web page. It seems that the consequences of such threats do not need to be talked about, because it can be both an innocuous program and a sufficiently serious product capable of stealing confidential information from a computer or a server and even completely removing the operating system or some "iron" components of the computer .

Even your own Windows security (a firewall or, as it is also called, a firewall) is very conditional and far from perfect.

Conclusion

As you can see, to view the World Wide Web requires not so much. However, some additional elements and programs designed, say, for using e-mail, creating and publishing their own information materials in the form of one-piece sites, for uploading files to the site (upload) or on a computer (download), CSS technologies and Etc. However, in this case, there were only some mandatory conditions that are basic for all systems.