Introduction to Internet

Notes

3
INTRODUCTION TO INTERNET

Communication has been an important aspect of mankind since ages. And

throughout history, technology has had a huge impact on the means of
communication. From smoke towers, carrier pigeons and horse riding men to
postal letters, telegraphs and telephone calls, we have always been trying to
discover new and faster means of communication. And today we are in the age,
when we can connect with anyone across the globe and that too at any point of
time. We can even send images, audio and video with the text messages. All this
is possible because of internet which has given a completely new definition to
communication. Internet or simply ‘Net’ is defined as a global network of
networks. Through internet people can communicate with each other or share each
other’s data across the globe. In this lesson, you will learn about what is internet,
how to surf the internet using web browers, how to use search engine to find
information?

Objectives
After reading this lesson, you will be able to:
z define internet and intranet;
z connect with internet through wired and wireless media;
z surf the internet using a web browser that may include:
„ Internet Explorer.
„ Mozilla Firefox.
„ Google Chrome.
z use a search engine to find information on the net;
z list the Do’s and Don’ts while surfing the net.

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Introduction to Internet

3.1 Internet and Intranet

As mentioned earlier, internet is a network of networks that helps us to communicate Notes
with anyone across the world at any time of the day. It has revolutionized the
manner in which communication, education, business, etc., have worked over the
years. One just requires a device with an internet connection to use any of the
internet services.

Internet Intranet

Fig. 3.1: Difference between Internet and Intranet

Intranet, on the other hand is the network designed for a particular group of people
only. These individuals may be part of an organization who are authorised to access
and use that particular network. It is not open to public but is limited to certain set
of people. For example, the employees of a multinational company, say ABC
International only can access the network of that company. Each employee may
be given a user id and password to access ABC company’s network. General public
will not be allowed to do so. Although to access intranet, we may require internet
but this access is limited in terms of information and number of users. In simple
terms we can say that internet is a public space while intranet is a private space.

3.2 Connect with Internet

The biggest advantage of internet is that it can be accessed by anyone from any part
of the world. To connect with internet we require the following:

z A digital device (computer/laptop) with web browser installed in it.

z A modem/router.
z An account with the Internet Service Provider (ISP).
Any computer, laptop or even mobile phone can be connected to Internet. A
modem allows to connect such devices via telephone lines. Modem stands for

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Modulator- Demodulator. The process of converting a digital signal ( in computer/

laptop or any other digital device) into an analog signal (in telephone lines) is called
Notes modulation and converting analog signals to digital signals is called demodulation.
A modem provides a link between the digital device and the Internet Service
Provider (ISP). ISP is the company or an organization that offers Internet services
and takes fee for such services. Some of the common ISPs in India are Mahanagar
Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), etc.

These ISPs have their servers installed so as to provide an internet connection to

its subscribers. The link with the ISP may be permanent or temporary. When the
modem connects with the ISP, the user id and password is checked for authenticity,
and then only the access is allowed to the internet services from the server of the
ISP. Once connected with the ISP, we have access to various facilities provided
through internet (including billions of web pages of information).

A web browser is a software that helps you to view the web pages. A web page
is a document written in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). World Wide
Web (www) or simply the web, as it is popularly called, is a collection of billions
of such web pages stored on computers connected to the internet. All these web
pages are publicly accessible and can be viewed in any of the web browsers,
provided you are connected with the internet.

3.2.1 Wired and Wireless Connections

The connection between the modem and the digital devices may be done with the
help of wires/cables or using certain electromagnetic waves. The former forms a
wired connection while the latter is the wireless connection. The table 3.1 below
compares the two types of connections.
Table 3.1: Wired and Wireless Connections

Wired Connection Wireless Connection

1. As the number of computers in a Installation is comparatively easy.
network increases, installation
becomes more and more difficult
and time consuming.
2. The cost of installation is less. Since wireless adaptor and access
points are expensive, the net
installation cost is more.

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Wired Connection Wireless Connection

3. The working stations are more or It is convenient as you can work Notes
less fixed. from any place that lies within the
range of the access point.
4. Once connected, the signal It offers limited signal strength, that
strength does not vary. too decreases as we go away from
the access point. Also, there is a
limit upto which the number of
devices can be connected to a
particular access point.
5. It is more secure. It is less secure as the signals can be
intercepted.

Wired Connections
Some of the examples of wired internet connection are:
z Dial Up Connection: In this type of connection, the modem gets connected
to the ISP after dialling a phone number of the ISP. The signal is sent over a
land line serviced by a public telephone network. This is cheap but slow
connection. Also, at a time either the telephone or the Internet is available. It
is very rarely used these days.
z Digital Subscriber Line (DSL): This is an internet connection that uses two
lines thus making Internet available even when the phone is being used. That
is why this type of connection is known as “Always On” connection. The
connection speed lies between 128 Kbps to 50 Mbps.
z Cable Connection: A cable provides an Internet connection through a cable
modem that operates over cable TV lines. It is more efficient than Dial-up or
DSL connections as the speed ranges from 512 Kbps to 100 Mbps.

Wireless Connections
Although wired connections have their own set of advantages, yet wireless
technology is increasingly becoming popular these days. Some of the commonly
used wireless technologies are:
z Satellites: The ISPs may connect to the internet via satellites that revolve
along the earth’s orbit. The speed of such connections ranges from 10 Mbps
to 50 Mbps.
z Wireless Fidelity or Wi-Fi: This is another form of wireless connection
where a local area network (LAN) uses high frequency radio signals or

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infrared waves to transfer data over short distances. Wi-Fis are commonly
being used at home, hotels, shopping malls, airports and other public places.
Notes People can simply log in at these places and access Internet.
z WiMax or Worldwide Interoperability: This type of wireless Internet
connection is used to access Internet at a very high speed. It uses radio signals
or microwaves to transmit data from one device to another. Also, the range
of WiMax can go upto 30 miles (approximate 50 kms).

3.2.2 Mobile Connections

Today is the age of smartphones where most of the mobile phones are having an
Internet connection. The mobile towers are providing such services. A mobile
phone can access the Internet through cellular towers or through wireless modems
(Wi-Fi/WiMax). Factually speaking, the mobile data services started with 2nd
generation (2G). During this period, only textual data could be transmitted using
the mobile data services.
Then with the launch of 3rd generation (3G) of mobile telecommunication
technology, the data transfer speed increased upto 200 kbps. Therefore video calls,
GPS and other such services are available on the mobile phones. At present, we
are in 4th generation (4G) of mobile telecommunication technology. The data
transfer speed is upto 100 Mbps for mobile users and upto 1 Gbps for fixed station
users. 4G technology has made communication of high quality audio/video data
transfer possible for gaming, high definition mobile TV and for cloud computing.

3.3 Surfing the Net

The World Wide Web (www) gives us unlimited information on any topic in the
form of text, graphics, audio or video. It works on the principle of Client Server
architecture. Our computer is the client that sends a request to the server. This
request is in the form of web address that is typed in the address bar of the web
browser. The browser then sends the request to the server of the connected ISP
which then sends the requested web page to be displayed by the browser. The
hyperlinks on each web page link to further pages and thus act as the connection
for further information. Hence, we can navigate from one page to another in search
of the desired information or to complete a particular task. This is known as
surfing the web or surfing the net.

3.3.1 How the Internet Works

Before discussing how Internet works, we must know that each computer on the
network has got its unique identity in the form of an IP Address. Therefore, each

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computer has got a unique IP address assigned to it because of which we are able
to know about the computer sending the data as well as the one receiving the data.
Notes
Further, for any type of communication, certain rules need to be followed.
Similarly, we have rules that govern the transfer of data on the network. These set
of rules are known as protocols. The two most important protocols needed for
working of Internet are Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet
Protocol (IP). The data to be transmitted from one computer (sender) to another
(receiver) is broken down into fixed size packets using TCP. The IP protocol makes
sure that each packet gets the IP address of the sender and the receiver. These
packets are then passed from one network to another until they reach their
destination where TCP again re-assembles them into the original message/data. If,
by any chance any of the data packets get lost or becomes garbled, a request is
made to send the packets again.
For example, If the message “Hello computer” has to be sent from one computer
(with IP address 192.168.7.150) to another computer (with IP address
192.168.7.151), then the process that will be followed is shown in the block
diagram below.

Application Application

TCP TCP

IP IP

Hardware Internet Hardware

Your Computer Another Computer

192.168.7.150 192.168.7.151

Fig. 3.2: Working of Internet

Intext Questions 3.1

1. Expand
(a) TCP/IP (b) HTML
2. Name any two wireless connections.

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3.4 Web Browsers

Notes A web browser is a software that helps us view the web pages. It reads and
interprets HTML documents on the world wide web. Some of the commonly used
web browsers are Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari and Google Chrome.

Although there are various web browsers available, yet there are certain properties
that are present in each web browser. Some of the common features are discussed
below:

Address Bar
This is the place where we type the address of the web site/web page and then click
‘Go’ button or press the ‘Enter’ key. The requested web page is then displayed
in the browser window.

Navigation Buttons
These buttons are used to navigate between the web pages being surfed in the
browser. Back, Forward, Refresh, etc., are navigation buttons (refer Fig. 3.4).

z Back: Displays the previous visited page.

z Forward: Displays the next page.

z Refresh: Reloads the page form the server.

z Stop: Stops the downloading of the current web page.

z Home: Opens or loads the home page of your browser.

Favourites/Bookmark: These help us to store the web pages that we visit

frequently for quick and easy access. We can add any page to ‘Favourites’ and
organize them into folders as well. The web pages can be stored, deleted, copied,
renamed or moved to and from these folders.

History: This feature helps us to open the recently visited web pages. By default,
the history folder saves the addresses of the web pages visited in the past 20 days.
Also, when the arrow just to the right of the address bar is clicked, a list of web
sites/web pages visited so far are displayed. We may sort the web pages stored in
the history folder by date, site name or even by frequency of visits.

Tools: This menu provides options for saving, printing or viewing a web page. Let
us now learn about some commonly used web browsers.

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3.4.1 Microsoft Internet Explorer

Microsoft Internet Explorer is a web browser created and launched by Microsoft Notes
Corporation. It comes free with all the versions of Windows operating system. It
can also be downloaded from https://www.microsoft.com/en-in/download/internet-
explorer.aspx
It was first released as an add-on with Windows 95 in the year 1995. The Internet
Explorer 11 is shown in Fig. 3.3, which is the eleventh version of the web browser.

Fig. 3.3: Internet Explorer

The Home, View Favourites, Feeds and History button and Tools buttons are
present on the top right corner of the browser.Also, Internet Explorer has a toolbar
containing commands to perform certain common tasks such as Print, Home, Read
Mail, Help, etc.

3.4.2 Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser developed by Mozilla
Corporation. It is available for Windows, MacOS and Linux operating systems and
can be downloaded from https://www.mozilla.org

It was initially released in the year 2002 and the latest version released is 62.0.2.
The navigation buttons are present on the left of the address bar while on the top
right corner you have View History, Saved Bookmarks and More button. Click
more button to open a pop up menu containing various options.

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Notes Navigation button Address bar View History, Saved Bookmark and More

Fig. 3.4: Mozilla Firefox

3.4.3 Google Chrome

Google Chrome is one of the most popular web browsers developed by Google
Inc. It was first released in the year 2008 for Microsoft Windows but was later
developed for Linux, MacOS, IOS and Android. It can be downloaded from https:/
/www.google.com/chrome/

Fig. 3.5: Google Chrome

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The buttons like Home, Favourites, History etc., are not visible in the Google
Chrome web browser. Instead there is Customize and Control Google Chrome
button on the top right corner. Click this button to do the desired tasks. Notes

Fig. 3.6: Customize and Control Pop up Menu

3.5 Search Engines

As we all know that Internet is a very large knowledge source that can be accessed
and shared from anywhere and at any time. A search engine is a tool that helps us
to find information on any topic. Google, Bing, Yahoo!, MSN Search are examples
of some of the commonly used search engines.
Basically, a search engine is a set of programs. These programs are created to find
the desired content via the World Wide Web. According to the information to be
searched, a set of keyword(s) or phrases are entered in the search pane or address
bar. The search engine then sends out a spider to retrieve documents/web pages,
images or even audio-video content that matches with the entered keywords. A list
of web pages having the matching keywords are displayed in the browser. This list
of contents is known as Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
For example, to search information on the Prime Minister of India, open the
browser and type the phrase ‘Prime Minister of India’ in the address bar or Google

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Search text box and then click ‘Google Search’ button. Alternatively, press the
‘Enter’ key.
Notes
The process of searching for the Prime Minister of India is highlighted in Fig. 3.7
and Fig. 3.8.

Fig. 3.7: Typing the Keywords in Address Bar

Fig. 3.8: Typing the Keywords in Google Search Box

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A list of web sites containing the keywords ‘Prime minister of India’ will be
dispalyed. If we click on any link, the corresponding web page containing the
requested information will be displayed. Notes

Likewise, we may also search for any image, audio or video content using any
search engine. Say, if we want to search and download national anthem of India,
just type ‘ National Anthem of India download ‘ and press ‘Enter’ key. The links
from where National Anthem can be downloaded will then be displayed. The list
of lins displaying the same is shown in Fig. 3.9.

Fig. 3.9: List of Links to Download National Anthem of India

3.6 Do’s and Don’ts of using the Internet

Internet is a large public space where each one is able to view, download, post or
send message/information to any other person. So, care should be taken while
surfing the internet or using any of the services of internet. There are certain sets
of rules that should be followed for acceptable online behaviour. Here is a list of
do’s and dont’s that one should follow while surfing or communicating on the
Internet.

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3.6.1 Do’s

Notes
z Login to your email account using your login id and password.
z Be a responsible user and respect other’s privacy.
z Use Internet as and when required. Do not aimlessly keep on surfing the net.
z Inform your parents/teachers or any trustworthy person, if anyone tries to
bully you or send you objectionable messages.
z Always keep your antivirus updated. Scan the files/programs before
downloading them to check for any malware like viruses.
z Use only those chat room sites that are public, monitored and trustworthy. It
is advisable to use an alias name for chat room sites.
z Do online shopping only from secure sites.
z Block the users who make you feel uncomfortable.

3.6.2 Dont’s
z Do not give your personal information to anyone on the internet.
z Never share your user-id and password with anybody. In fact, you should keep
on changing your passwords regularly.
z Do not embarrass your friends by tagging them in awkward photos and videos.
z Do not post anything that may be objectionable to anybody.
z Do not spread false information or rumours.
z Do not be rude even if you do not agree with other peoples views.
z If you have befriended with anyone online, do not try to meet him/her alone.
Always take your parent/friend along with you.
z Do not open or download any file/attachment from any unknown source as
it may contain viruses.
z Do not let web browsers remember your passwords, as it increases the risk
of being hacked.

Intext Questions 3.2

1. Which web browser comes as an add-on with Windows operating system?
2. List any three points that you should take care while surfing the net.
3. What happens when refresh button in the web browser is clicked?
4. Explain SERP.

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What You have Learnt Notes

z Intranet is a private network that can be accessed by authorized group of
people.

z A modem provides a link between the digital device and the Internet Service
Provider (ISP).

z The two most important protocols needed for working of Internet are
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP).

z Internet is a large public space where each one is able to view, download, post
or send message/information to any other person.

z Web browser reads and interprets HTML documents on the World Wide Web.
Some of the commonly used web browsers are Internet Explorer, Mozilla
Firefox, Safari and Google Chrome.

Terminal Exercise
1. Differentiate between Internet and Intranet.
2. List the requirements to access Internet.
3. Give two differences between the following:
(a) Wired and wireless connections.
(b) WiFi and WiMax
4. Define the following:
(a) Web Page
(b) Web Site
(c) ISP
(d) Search Engine
5. What is the function of TCP/IP with respect to working of Internet?
6. How can a mobile phone access internet?
7. What is a web browser? Name any two features of a web browser.

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8. What is the use of ‘Favourites and History’ buttons of a web browser?

Notes
9. Sohail wants to search information on festivals of India from Internet. List the
steps to do so.
10. Name any three actions that should not be done while surfing the net.

Answers to Intext Questions

3.1
1. (a) Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
(b) Hyper Text Markup Language
2. Satellite/Wifi/WiMax

3.2
1. Internet Explorer
2. (any three)
z Login using your login id and password.
z Be a responsible user and respect other’s privacy.
z Use Internet as and when required. Do not aimlessly keep on surfing the
net.
z Inform your parents/teachers or any trustworthy person, if anyone tries
to bully you or send you objectionable messages.
z Always keep your antivirus updated. Scan the files/programs before
downloading them to check for any malware like viruses.
z Use only those chat room sites that are public, monitored and trustworthy.
It is advisable to use an alias name for chat room sites.
z Do online shopping only from secure sites.
z Block the users who make you feel uncomfortable.
3. The page is reloaded from the server.
4. Search Engine Results Page.

Key Learning Outcome

z Learn to apply different ways to connect to the internet.

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