Encyclopedia
Foundations
This department
How the web works: the internet underneath, the protocols browsers and servers speak, names, addresses, hosting and the tools people use to build sites.
Entries
14 of 14 planned entries are published. New entries are added in batches, and every one is checked against its sources before it goes live.
- World Wide Web: What the web is, how it differs from the internet, 1989 proposal to today
- Internet: The network underneath: ARPANET to today, in the depth a web builder needs
- Hypertext: Linked text before the web: Memex, Xanadu, HyperCard
- HTTP: How browsers and servers talk, HTTP/0.9 to HTTP/3
- HTTPS and TLS: Encryption on the web, SSL to TLS 1.3, the padlock and certificates
- URL: Web addresses, their parts and how they evolved
- Domain name: Names, extensions, registries and registrars
- DNS: How a name becomes a server address
- IP address: IPv4, IPv6 and why addresses ran out
- Web server: The software and machine that answer page requests
- Web browser: What a browser does, rendering engines, the family tree
- Web hosting: Shared, VPS, dedicated, cloud and managed hosting
- HTTP cookie: Invented in 1994 for shopping carts, now regulated
- Website builder: From GeoCities to Wix, Squarespace and AI builders