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
1 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 (coming soon): The network underneath: ARPANET to today, in the depth a web builder needs
- Hypertext (coming soon): Linked text before the web: Memex, Xanadu, HyperCard
- HTTP (coming soon): How browsers and servers talk, HTTP/0.9 to HTTP/3
- HTTPS and TLS (coming soon): Encryption on the web, SSL to TLS 1.3, the padlock and certificates
- URL (coming soon): Web addresses, their parts and how they evolved
- Domain name (coming soon): Names, extensions, registries and registrars
- DNS (coming soon): How a name becomes a server address
- IP address (coming soon): IPv4, IPv6 and why addresses ran out
- Web server (coming soon): The software and machine that answer page requests
- Web browser (coming soon): What a browser does, rendering engines, the family tree
- Web hosting (coming soon): Shared, VPS, dedicated, cloud and managed hosting
- HTTP cookie (coming soon): Invented in 1994 for shopping carts, now regulated
- Website builder (coming soon): From GeoCities to Wix, Squarespace and AI builders