In 1991 , the World Wide WWW became open to the public and usher in a new era of Internet utilisation . In its earlier iterations , the Internet was text - based and tiresomely dewy-eyed . It certainly did not have GIFs ofdancing hamsters .
British data processor scientist Sir Tim Berners - Lee is the discoverer of the World Wide Web ( W3 ) , and he began oeuvre on this now ubiquitous computer program in 1989 as a means to avail scientists at CERN communicate . He create thefirst web page editor program and web browser app , WorldWideWeb.app , in 1990 . He also created three programs that continue to exercise as the backbone of the Internet to this day : HTML , a formatting speech used to create the visual and audio of a website;URI / URL , unique addresses that jibe with specific web pages ; andHTTP , an inherent protocol that allow users to exchange information .
When you type into the address bar at the top of your web internet browser , you ’re give it a command . participate dissimilar prefixes before a uniform resource locator calls to unlike waiter that provide different services ( “ mail ” brings you to due east - mail , and “ ftp ” get you transpose file ) . recruit “ www ” meansyou want to contactthe specific server that will send you back the request varlet in all its HTML glory . The prefix " www " was never compulsory , but it traditionally function as the chosen name for such hosts . This prefix choice was mostly inadvertent ; not even thefirst webpageused this prefix , and instead went by " nxoc01.cern.ch . "

The reason we arrest using “ World Wide Web ” before our uniform resource locator is simply because it ’s not needed . Most people are only essay to view the HTML version of a website , so reach the W3 has becomedefault . It ’s only when you ’re looking for a different section of the web page that you call for to total something specific before the server name .