Internet Technologies & Terms | IBPS PO Prelims & Mains Preparation - Bank Exams PDF Download

World Wide Web 

WWW was launched on 13th March, 1989. The World Wide Web is a system of internet servers that supports hypertext and multimedia to access several internet protocols on a single interface. It is way of exchanging information between computers on the internet; try to tie them together into a vast collection of interactive multimedia resources.

The World Wide Web is only a portion of what makes up the internet, but it is the fastest growing part of the internet. The web lets people, organizations and companies publish information for other people to see.

Web Page: It is the backbone of WWW is made of files, called pages or web pages, containing information and links to resources – both text and multimedia – throughout the internet. It is created using HTML (HyperText Markup Language). The web is a collection of large number of computer documents or web pages that are stored on computers around the world and are connected to one another using hyperlinks. These web pages can be seen by anyone through their computer’s web browser.

The main or first page of a website is known as home page. 

Website: “A website is a collection of digital documents, primarily HTML files, that are linked together and that exist on the web under the same domain”. The very first page of the website is called home page of that website.

Web Browser: It is software application that is used to locate, retrieve and also display content on the World Wide Web, including web pages. Web browsers are programs used to explore the internet.

There are two types of web browsers:

• Text web browser
• Graphical web browser

The first graphical web browser was NCSA Mosaic.

Some popular Graphical Web Browsers 

• Netscape 
• Internet Explorer (IE) 
• Firefox 
• Google Chrome 
• Safari 
• Opera

Internet terms and their meanings

1. Intranet: is a network of computers within an organization.
2. Extranet: is a network of computers between some related organizations.
3. Gateway: is a particular point in a network that acts as an entrance to another network. For example, the ‘payment gateway’, if you’ve done any internet payment transaction you would have seen that from the merchant’s site you are taken to a payment gateway, from where you are then taken to your bank’s net banking site.
4. Firewall: is a program in charge of rejecting unwanted incoming connection requests. A server with a firewall will keep other computers form connecting to the server. It is like a boundary wall to keep intruders at bay.
5. DNS: Domain name server – is a program which deals with computer addresses. You can look at it as a telephone directory, but for the Internet; it translates user friendly computer hostnames into IP addresses.
   Popular Domain names:
   
6. Flash: is an embedded animation software/program that displays small animations on web pages; like the how many ducks can you shoot!?
7. URL: Uniform Resource Locater – is nothing but a web page’s address, or in other words URL specifies the address of every file on the internet.
   URL has three parts
   (i) the protocol to be used to access the file = {http://}
   (ii) the IP address = {www.gmail}
   (iii) the domain name = {.com}
8. Browser: is the software or program that allows a computer to view web pages. Like Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera.
9. Web Crawler: is a program that visits web sites and reads their pages and other information in order to create entries for a search engine index.
10. Search Engines: are special program running on a website which offers user results of simultaneous searches of other websites for the required information. For example - Google
11. Traffic Congestion: is a phenomenon where too many users are connecting to the internet at the same time or the internet service provider’s cables are not able to support the user’s maximum speed; it really is like the traffic jam!
12. Digital Signature: also known as electronic signature is like an encryption technique for documents, which guarantees authenticity of the document and helps combat digital forgeries and frauds.
13. Encryption/ Decryption: Encryption is a technique, derived from military use, to mask/disguise any information, which cannot be read by anyone who does not have the password/key.
    In other words, encryption is ‘encoding’ any message/information so that only authorizes people can read it. Encryption is done with a private key.
    Thus, decryption is the ‘decoding’ of the encoded message, with the help of a public key.
14. Cloud Computing: is a service provided, wherein one can obtain network based storage space with such service providers.
    User needs to open an account with the service provider, much like creating an e-mail id. E-mails are also cloud computing but on a smaller scale.

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is the newest internet fascination which is attracting large user base from all around the world; virtual storage space is not only easier but also has many benefits:

• accessing documents/data from anywhere as long as you have internet connection,
• no need to carry storage devices, like external hard disks,
• online backups help when data are lost on existing systems,
• for small businesses cloud storage is very helpful as it saves their costs of purchasing and maintaining storage devices and hardwares,
• you can buy space as per requirement, and cost of storage is lesser than other options,

Types of clouds:

• Public Cloud: it can be accessed by any subscriber with an internet connection and access to the cloud space.
• Private Cloud: is where only an authorized group of individuals or organizations have limited access.
  Community Cloud: like the name suggests is a ‘communal’ thing, where the service is shared among two or more organizations or companies, that have similar cloud requirements.
• Hybrid Cloud: where a mixture of user interests are all catered to, i.e. a combination of public, private and community.

Types of cloud service providers:

• SaaS = Software as a Service provider gives access to users for resources as well as apps.
  Thus, the user does not need to store software or apps on their computer/ smartphones/ tablets. So, you can do your work using the software provided by the cloud service providers. User has least control over the cloud.
• PaaS = Platform as a Service provider is a level above Saas; it gives users access and utilities(tools) to develop applications(apps) as per their requirement, save such apps and then use such apps. User has more control over the cloud.
• IaaS = Infrastructure as a Service provider provides infrastructure; computer infrastructure is the hardware and software.
  Thus IaaS service providers provide users outsourcing services for the entire computing system with the hardware and software required for storage. Thus, here user has maximum control over the cloud.
  Examples of cloud storage service providers are, OneDrive, Dropbox, NetSuite, Rackspace etc.