web = net ?

Following my confusion with respect to what an URL is, I read some articles to start filling the gap in my knowledge. It began to dawn on me that - although I always used these two words as synonyms - Internet and Web do not mean the same thing.

The Internet is a massive collection of interconnected computers. It connects millions of computers together globally, forming a network in which any computer can communicate with any other computer as long as they are both connected to the Internet. The computers are linked to each other by copper wires, fiber-optic cables, wireless connections etc.
Information that travels over the Internet does so via IP (Internet protocol) and TCP (Transmission Control Protocol)..to explain these protocols in further detail will require an extra lesson for me. But I somehow got as least the following: when information is sent over the Internet, it is broken apart and packaged inside Internet Protocol packets or "IP packets."


The World Wide Web, or simply the Web, is a way of accessing information over the medium of the Internet. It is an information-sharing model that is built on top of the Internet and is a collection of interconnected documents and files linked together by hyperlinks and URLs (= internet addresses). The Web uses the HTTP protocol to transmit data. HTTP is only one of the languages spoken over the Internet (puuh, another lesson waiting for me on this one).

Basically, the Web is just one of the ways how information can be spread over the Internet. In fact, the Web is just one of the services deployed on the Internet. It's content vs. transport. Just as goods can be transported by a truck on a highway, a Web page is transported by packets on the Internet.

Well, I guess this is close to the easiest way the difference between the Internet and the Web can be explained. I'm happy to receive suggestions that are even more dummyproof ;)
Dania