Many people consider web and Internet as one and the same thing. Internet is a network of computers running across the globe, whereas the web makes it useful for us.

The Invention of the Web
Web was invented by Tim Berners Lee in 1989. Internet started 20 years before the invention of web. People were trying to find an effective way to send information through Internet but a system to utilize the potential of Internet was not present at that time.

The introduction of web brought about a revolution. Berners Lee intended to use links in Internet. His idea of web was a huge lot of pages linked to each other. The various pages could be accessed by a click of the mouse on these links. He created the HTML format for web pages and made the first web browser to have a view of them, and the first web server to send it to other browsers.

Web would have been so different if the links would not have existed, as then the users would have to type long addresses again and again for opening any page. In fact, Internet would be absolutely useless without the web.

Servers and Browsers
A web browser works are follows:

* As soon as you open the browser, you reach the home page. Here, you can click on links to reach other websites. In case your homepage is a search engine, enter the search and get results. If you know the websites address you can type it directly, otherwise you can go through the search engine.

* Whenever a link is clicked, the browser notices the name of the server and the name of the page it links to.

* The web browser locates the server using Domain Name System, or DNS. This converts the address into a number. The IP address comprises of four numbers between 0 to 255. Knowing the IP address lets you know the server.

* The browser sends an HTTP request to the server. The server sends back the HTML code for that page. It is then turned into a viewable page by the web browser.

Modern browsers send more than just HTML code. It can be used to download anything from programs to pictures. An error is displayed in case something goes wrong anywhere. For instance, if the server's name was wrong, a message saying 'the page cannot be displayed' is shown. To revert, follow the instructions on the page, and check the address.