this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2025
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[–] curbstickle@anarchist.nexus 23 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Back then, an internet (lower case "i") was a small internal network of computers that communicated with each other.

That is an intranet, not internet, and is still applicable as a term. You just hear people say LAN more these days.

"World Wide Web" turned out to be a mouthful to say, so we replaced it with "the Internet" instead. Although most websites still start with "www" to represent their global reach.

The world wide web was always just one part of the internet, specifically the portion supported by http. Ftp, email, etc existed then as well, but was not part of the www.

[–] marcela@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

An internet in theory is a network of other computer networks (not single computers). The Internet is the world wide web.

[–] curbstickle@anarchist.nexus 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

An intranet is a local and private computer network.

The internet is a network of intranets, or more accurately, a network by which computers of disparate networks can connect.

Intra, meaning inside or within. Inter, meaning between or among.

Interdepartmental communication would be communication between departments, while intradepartmental communication would be within a single department.

The inter vs intra is the difference here.

[–] marcela@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] curbstickle@anarchist.nexus 2 points 1 day ago

I thought I was clarifying without going into detail on the definition of an extranet, I don't even know how I'd assume gender?

[–] 14th_cylon@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

no, the internet is not the world wide web. www is just one of many services provided on the internet and it can be used on the intranet that is completely cut off from the rest of the world.

there is a terminology question then if it is still really the world wide web or rather small web, but the fact stays that services provided on http protocol and internet are not the synonyms. same as mcdonald is not asynonym for "a restaurant" even if specific person may not have visited any other restaurant in their life.

[–] marcela@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Well, this is something that felt off indeed. But please explain. So http(s) is the world of http requests, but you can also have other services like ftp, ssh, bittorrent and what not. Is that what you mean? So the WWW is just the global interconnection of web pages strictly, over the Internet? Would this apply to any internet? /genuine

[–] 14th_cylon@lemmy.zip 2 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

basically, yeah. internet is network of computers spanning all earth. intranet is smaller network of computers. intranet is often more private network under more centralized control of someone, with limited access from outside, that can be operated for example by some corporation or university, accessible only for employers or students (possibly using vpn to remotely connect to the network).

www. is the name of the service - http is a protocol it uses.

e-mail is the name of service - to access it, lot of people use http protocol if you use webmail, or imap or pop3 protocol if you use some dedicated client (like thunderbird, outlook, or others). smtp protocol is used to send the message to another mail server (you may have also been asked to configure it when manually configuring some dedicated e-mail client).

ftp, ssh, bittorrent,VOIP telephony using SIP protocol, IRC are other useful services. all these services can be run on network of any size, internet or intranet.

for example majority of modern doorbell systems are running on sip protocol and they are basically small VOIP phones running primarilly on a limited intranet in one specific building. but if that local network has access to the internet, they can have, due to nature of what they are, an option to forward that "call" to any other telephone number in the world in case no one picks it up at home.

small web-developers routinely run their own web-server of their own desktop, which may only be accessible locally, from that one computer or their small home network, to test the web pages they are developing. whether it is still world WIDE web is funny academical question then, because that web is not very wide in such case.