World Wide Web(WWW)
In 1989 the World Wide Web was invented by Sir Tim Berners-Lee. The World Wide Web (WWW) is a network of online content that is formatted in HTML and accessed via HTTP. The term refers to all the interlinked HTML pages that can be accessed over the Internet.
The World Wide Web is most often referred to simply as "the Web". Many people think that the internet and the world wide web are the same thing. While they are closely linked, they are very different systems. WWW is collection of all Web pages, pictures, videos and other online content that can be accessed via a Web browser. The Internet, in contrast, is the underlying network connection that allows us to access the World Wide Web.
HTTP
Let's walk through how the world wide web works at a fundamental level. Let us first learn about HTTP. HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol, it's the entire backbone of the world wide web. It is the protocol used to process, render, and deliver web pages from the server-side to the client browser. HTTP is the means through which most of the web is displayed. It's the communication protocol you use when you browse the web. In simple terms, you requests for specific resource and get that from the server. There are many ways to get the resource. URL(Uniform Resource Locator) is one of the most common concept of the internet. A URL is a web address used to identify resources on the web. Just like you have a home address to locate you, webpages and their resources has URL to locate them on the Web.
We got to know the HTTP in a simple term. Now let's understand the main difference between HTTP and HTTPS.
HTTPS
HTTPS stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure. The biggest difference between HTTP and HTTPS is that HTTPS uses Transport Layer Security(TLS) or, formerly, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to encrypt all the requests and responses. This is what creates a secure, encrypted connection between a browser and a server, which protects the layer of communication between the two. Therefore, HTTPS is known to protect the integrity, privacy, and security of your website as well as your users and users can simply identify if your website is using HTTPS protocol by the web address. This is how encrypted data looks like.👇
As you can see in the image below HTTPS is secure and the data exchanged between the client and the server is encrypted. Although web encryption has been around for the past few decades, it only became a thing when Google started encouraging website owners in 2015 to switch to HTTPS in order to protect their visitors. The original HTTPS protocol was released in 1995 and it enabled companies to handle credit card transactions online by protecting payment details. However, it took years for SSL’s (Secure Socket Layer) successor TLS (Transport Layer Security) to become widely used outside of the online payments.
Now you know what these protocol means. But, that is a very general overview of how hypertext transfer protocol works. These connections creates the world wide web as we know it today. Without HTTP, the world wide web (WWW) as we know it would not exist.
Web has evolved a lot since it first began. First generation(Web 1.0) was read-only, where users couldn't interact with what they had on the internet. Second was Web 2.0, it's what we have now. We can interact with the web upto some extent. It's fun, entertaining and informative, but has it's limitations too. We can already do a lot of things on the internet. But we are not stopping there. Now there is a buzz word on the internet as Web3, known to be successor of Web 2.0. I guess you have already heard of it. It's a very very interesting concept. We are extremely early in this 3rd generation of internet space where Web 3.0, as it's known as in simple terms to be open and decentralised. Now you're curious, aren't you? I will write a blog on the Web 3.0 soon. Watch this space.
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