The Internet and the World Wide Web together form a global broadcast medium for the general public. From your desktop computer, smartphone, tablet, Xbox, media player, GPS, or car, you can access a world of messages and content via the Internet and the Web. This guide will fill in your knowledge gaps and ensure that you quickly become fluent in the Internet and the Web.

The Internet is a vast hardware network. The most extensive collection of readable content on the Internet is called the World Wide Web, a collection of several billion pages and images linked together by hyperlinks. Other content on the Internet includes e-mail, instant messaging, streaming video, peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing, and downloading.

The Internet, or net, is a term that refers to the interconnection of computer networks. It is a conglomeration of millions of computers and smart devices, all connected by wires or wireless signals. Although it began in the 1960s as a military experiment in communications, the Internet evolved into a public free-to-air forum in the 1970s and 1980s. No single authority owns or controls the Internet. No set of laws regulates its content. You connect to the Internet through a private Internet service provider in your home or office, or through a public Wi-Fi network.

In 1989, a growing collection of readable content was added to the Internet: the World Wide Web. The Web consists of the HTML pages and images that travel through the Internet's hardware. You may hear the terms Web 1.0, Web 2.0, and the Invisible Web to describe these billions of Web pages.