Internet

What is the Internet?

The Internet, short for Interconnected Network, is a network of computers that span the entire planet. Through the Internet, a computer anywhere on the world can communicate (exchange data with) any other computer anywhere else on the world.

What kind of data is being exchange varies depending on which programs these two computers are using to communicate with each other. In general, communication is done through a client-server protocol. A client (a program running in one computer) sends a request to a server (a different program running in another* computer), asking for some data of some kind, and when the server receives this request, it sends back the data to the client.

For example, it's thanks to the Internet that we have the web (websites and webpages). For the web to work, we have a web server and a web client. There are many kinds of web server programs, such as Apache, and many kinds of web client programs, such as your web browser. Your web browser sends a request to a web server somewhere in the world, and the web server sends back the webpage data for your web browser to display. However, not everything on the Internet is the web. When you play an online game, the game is a client that communicates with a server to request data such as the position of other players.