Internet

The Internet is a globe-spanning network of computers. There are millions of servers and user computers all connected together to create the Internet.

While we sometimes talk about the Internet and the World Wide Web as the same thing, they really aren't. The World Wide Web is a part of the Internet--probably the part you are most familiar with--but there are lots of other parts of the Internet as well. Email is another important part of the Internet that you have probably used. Other less common parts of the Internet are Telnet, FTP, and IRC...but people don't use this as much as they used to, because the World Wide Web is so easy to use, and these others are sort of geeky.

Information on the Internet travels as packets of computer code. Information can be downloaded from servers to your computer, or uploaded from your computer to a server on the Internet.