Today, working on the Internet, called the World Wide Web by many, which, in general, is somewhat incorrect, will not surprise anyone. But here, to view the World Wide Web, several prerequisites are required, which not all novice users know about. So, let's figure out exactly how we need the tools.
What is the World Wide Web?
In general, the very term World Wide Web, today abbreviated as WWW, officially appeared back in 1989, when Tim Burns-Lee proposed to the world the use of, so to speak, a global and comprehensive project for the publication of hypertext documents interconnected.
The same time is attributed to the appearance of the HTML markup language and the basic WWW and HTTP identifiers. Since then, the World Wide Web has received its unofficial name of the World Wide Web. Documents are typically hosted on physical servers or virtual web servers that are capable of more than just displaying the actual documents created(pages), but also generate them based on special scenarios. Hence the simplest conclusion: to view the World Wide Web, you must have support for these elements. Let's dwell on each of them separately.
What You Need to Browsing the World Wide Web: Getting Started
It goes without saying that the initial condition for access to the global information space will need to establish a connection. By basic definition, these are services that are provided by a special service called a provider. It is he who is responsible for communication using its own servers and multi-channel access to remote systems.
As you can see by now, without an internet connection, browsing is out of the question. This means that a connection is required to view the World Wide Web. This can be either connecting a single computer terminal or laptop, creating connections over a local area network with a single access to the Internet for all terminals through a central server, using a wireless connection or a modem connection.
Browser
But this is far from the only condition for browsing 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 a computer, laptop or even a mobile gadget of a special program or several programs called Internet browsers.
Today you can find quite a large number of them. The most popular are Opera, Google Chrome, Chromium, MozillaFirefox, etc., as well as Internet Explorer, installed by default on any Windows operating system (in Windows 10, this is the Edge browser). Their main settings in terms of additional elements that are assumed by modern technologies will be discussed a little later.
Exact address
So, we've sorted out the browser. What else do you need to know for sure to browse the World Wide Web (WWW)? Of course, the so-called URL address.
You can compare it, for example, with a person's home address (very arbitrary). 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 interpreted as the concept of a hyperlink). The convention is that in one apartment, for example, several people can live, but for all of them the registration address is common. For pages or sites located on the same server, the main address will also be common, but each page additionally corresponds to a separate link so as not to search among their number for the only one that has the necessary information. By the way, it is worth paying attention here that there are no two identical addresses in the world. In some ways, this is similar to the system of identifying computers by unique IDs.
Among the addresses of all types, one can single out the standard ones, those that start with https://www. (simply www. or without using it after the first link), as well as addresses like https://www. corresponding to the entrance to the protected area.
SupportActiveX controls and add-ons
In addition to everything described, one should take into account the fact that in the general system of the World Wide Web, to view one must be able to use some additional elements that can be used on sites or web pages.
So, for example, in the "native" Windows browser, this is support for ActiveX controls and executable scripts, which significantly expands the capabilities of not only the browser itself, but also saving completely different information on sites.
However, today it is generally accepted that the most common add-on in the form of a special plug-in (add-on) for browsers is the Adobe Flash Player, which is responsible for playing audio and video of various formats on the Web. As such, the program does not run in the browser (that is, there is no need to start the application manually, as is done for a regular executable EXE file). It starts automatically when you click on the corresponding 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, you need powerful anti-virus software on your system. It's good if "OSes" like Linux or Mac OS X are used. There are no viruses for them, because they simply do not work in this environment.
Windows systems are another matter. Since their appearance, viruses have become a real global problem. And if earlier it was possible to “catch” a virus, say, from a floppy disk,Now self-copying viruses can be transmitted not only in local networks, but also present in the form of threats only during a standard transition to a web page. It seems that there is no need to talk about the consequences of such threats, because it can be either a harmless program or a rather serious product that can steal confidential information from a computer or server, and even completely disable the operating system or some of the computer’s hardware components..
Even Windows' own protections (the firewall or, as it is also called, the firewall) are very conditional and far from perfect.
Conclusion
As you can see, it doesn't take much to browse the World Wide Web. True, some additional elements and programs have not been considered now, for example, for using e-mail, creating and publishing your own information materials in the form of whole sites, for uploading files to a site (upload) or to a computer (download), CSS technologies and etc. However, in this case, only some mandatory conditions were meant, which are basic for all systems.
