2. What is the Internet?

The internet is made up of millions upon millions of small computer networks all brought together to form the vast "Inter-Network". That word never caught on, so it was shortened to the much easier-to-say "Internet".

A large part of the Internet is the 'World Wide Web" ( WWW).

This is made up of web sites that have one or more web pages. This is the part of the Internet that you probably use most of the time.

But the Internet isn't just the web pages that you use every day. It also consists of:

Forums where people can seek help and advice about a topic

Research databases used by universities and large companies

USENET - discussion groups about a specific subject from the latest boy band to favorite pets - for example Google Groups

Email and Instant Messaging systems

Note that no-one 'owns' the Internet. This is because each part of it is made up of individual networks that someone has put together and then linked to the Internet.

However, each network has to obey Internet standards in order to connect. And there are groups set up by the U.S government that organise things such as web addresses.

It is really important to understand that the Internet is not the same as the WWW. The Internet is to the World Wide Web as Europe is to Germany. One is the container, the other is an item within the container.