What are the Differences Between the Internet and the World Wide Web?

by Liam McDermott, 15 March 2007 - 8:34pm

Many people do not realize the Internet and World Wide Web (we'll call it the Web) are actually different things.

This article aims to explain the differences.

The Internet

This was created in 1969 (although it was called ARPAnet) as a US military project. Since then the Internet has been de-regulated and it's popularity has exploded, this is arguably because of the invention of the Web.

Applications that communicate with each other across the world do so via the Internet; it is the communications layer. Examples of these include:

Web Browsers and server;,
file sharing applications;
instant messengers;
e-mail clients

The World Wide Web

The Web was invented by Sir Tim Berners-Lee as a system for sharing documentation while he was working at the CERN particle physics laboratory.

It is a system of documents called ‘hypertext’. Possibly the most important aspect of the Web is the ‘hyperlink’. These link documents together across the Web. An example is this site, the Web browser formats the hypertext Web page and allows the user to visit other pages when they click a link. The address bar at the top of the browser shows the current Web page. When a different Web page is requested the browser transfers this across the Internet.

The easiest way to think of these subtle differences is to remember that the Web runs over the Internet.

The Internet and Open Standards

The explosion in usage of the Internet and Web is largely due to their openness. No single company has control over how the Internet and Web function. More importantly, the specifications are controlled by standards agencies^[1] who have the specifications freely available on their Web sites.

Open specifications mean any person or organisation can develop software that runs over the Internet or browser the Web: a good example of how Free software can be used to create new, markets with low barriers to entry.