What is the Internet?

What isn't the Internet? It is certainly not a library of the accumulated knowledge of all humanity.

A better description for it would be the world's biggest flea market where anyone who wants to display their wares to the public may do so.  There is no effective limitation on who may display or have access, or what may be displayed.  As a result, like any flea market, you may have to wander past a lot of (for you) useless rubbish in order to find the bargain you want. You can sift and browse (see Search Engines) at your leisure and, in the end, you choose whether to accept the material.

Also like a flea market, there is no automatic guarantee of quality (see Reliability). You must decide whether you are willing to accept the material.  If you want assured quality, it usually means that you have to go to a recognized supplier and pay for it (i.e. buy the book, or subscribe to the database service)!

However, with billions of sites out there, you will find something interesting as you look through all the possibilities.

How does it work? It uses the normal communication channels (phone, microwave, cable etc.) to link computers together.  In a way, you could say there is no such thing as the Internet.  All the computers, phone lines and so on would still exist without it.  The internet is a set of  protocols (procedures, software etc.) that enable computers to send, accept and understand messages to and from each other.  The most common is Hyper Text Transfer Protocol, the http code that you find on web addresses.

As long as you have a computer with the proper browsing software (e.g. Netscape, Microsoft Explorer, Safari, Opera, Mozilla etc.), and a link to other computers (usually through a modem and an Internet Service Provider) you can join the Internet.

What is a URL? It is the address of a particular computer file.  It is the "phone number" that enables you to look at something held on another computer. It usually begins with the protocol (http://) though this often does not need to be typed in, then the domain (the main file name).  This has several parts which can indicate who owns the overall site, whether they are commercial (.com or .co), educational (.edu or .ac), non-profit (.net or .org), and even their country of origin (.au Australia, .nz New Zealand, .uk Great Britain, nothing usually USA).

After the main domain part, a slash indicates a file within that larger site.  Each succeeding slash represents a smaller part of that larger file. So abc.net.au/news/headlines.htm is the headlines page of the news file of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. .htm or .html is another code for the computer language.

A URL must be typed in accurately and completely - every letter, slash and dot.  No spaces are allowed as the computer would see that as a break and a change to something else.

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These pages are designed by David Beagley for the Hall Board of the Bendigo Masonic Centre.
Responsibility for, and copyright of, content (unless otherwise noted) are his and his alone.

Last updated February 2005