How Web Works?
World Wide Web, or simply the Web, is a vast network of interconnected documents and other resources, linked by hyperlinks and URLs.
It is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet. The Web allows users to easily access and share information, including text, images, videos, and other multimedia content, as well as run interactive applications.
There are three major components to define how web works:
- Client (web browser)
- Server (web server)
- Network (Internet)
Client (web browser)
The client is the software that runs on a user’s device, such as a web browser (e.g. Chrome, Firefox, Safari) that allows the user to request and view Web pages. When a user enters a URL into the web browser, it sends a request to the server for the corresponding page.
The client is responsible for interpreting the code of the webpage and displaying it to the user. The client also keeps track of the state of the webpage, such as the scroll position, and saves this information in a browser cookie.
When a user enters a URL into the browser, the browser sends an HTTP request (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) to the server for the corresponding page. The server then processes the request and sends an HTTP response back to the browser, which includes the requested page and any associated resources such as images, videos, and stylesheets.
HTTP is a stateless protocol, which means that the server does not maintain any information about the client between requests.
Let’s understand how web browser works
When you enter a domain name let’s say google.com, You browser doesn’t know what google.com means or do, so it will ask your ISP to resolve google.com and return an IP address that is basically the IP address linked to the google.com domain.
On internet every connected system has an IP address. An IP address is a unique address that identifies a device on the internet.
When your ISP(internet service provider) doesn’t know about the IP address of google.com it will ask the Global domain provider to ask for the IP address. once it will receive the IP address, the client will create a connection with that server and start requesting content.
Server (web server)
The server is the software that runs on a remote machine and serves the requested pages to the client. The server can be a dedicated machine or a virtual machine running on a cloud service. Examples of web servers include Apache and Nginx.
The server receives the request from the client and processes it. The server can generate the HTML for a webpage dynamically by querying a database or it can simply return a static file. The server can also handle authentication and authorisation.
Each server will have a IP address and we can bind a domain on top of it so that it is easy for others to remember your business name rather than remembering your IP address.
Network (Internet)
The network is the infrastructure that connects the client and server, such as the Internet. The network uses the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP) to transmit data between the client and server. The network is responsible for routing the request from the client to the server and the response from the server to the client.
In summary, the Web works by allowing users to access and share information through a network of interconnected documents and other resources that are linked by hyperlinks and URLs
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