When we think about the internet the first thing that comes into our mind is Google. Is it correct??
I will try to change your perspective of the internet by the end of this reading. So For a few minutes keep all the things that you know about the internet aside and dive in with me to know about the real internet!!
In simple terms, the Internet is an interconnection of computers.
Do you think the internet belongs to a particular person or organization?
Actually the internet was the work of dozens of pioneering scientists, programmers and engineers who each developed new features and technologies that eventually merged to become the “Information Superhighway” we know today.
Internet is actually invented for the sake of defence purpose. The first workable prototype came in the late of 1960s with the creation of ARPANET, or the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. It is funded by the U.S Department of Defence.
The application and services of the Internet are World Wide Web (WWW), Electronic Mail (e-mail), Internet Telephony, Streaming Media, File Sharing etc.,
Let’s have a look at the World Wide Web. By the use of Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and HTTP over the internet, WWW has been achieved. It is done by Berners-Lee at CERN where he became frustrated with the inefficiencies and the difficulties posed during finding information stored on different computers.
The World Wide Web commonly known as the Web, is a global collection of documents, images, multimedia and applications. The web is publicly available from August 6, 1991. Berners-Lee published the first-ever website and the site’s URL is : http://info.cern.ch
WorldWideWeb was the first web browser and editor. At the time it was written, it was the sole web browser in existence, as well as the first “What You See Is What You Get” (WYSIWYG) HTML editor. In the next few years, websites such as Yahoo(1994), Amazon(1995), Ebay(1995) and Facebook(2004) were launched. Right now we have more than 1.7 billion websites according to Internet Live Stats.
The Size of WWW can be found from http://WorldWideWebSize.com
Web can be divided into 3 types :
The Surface Web
The Deep Web
The Dark Web
The Surface Web:
The Surface Web is what users access in their regular day-to-day activity. It is available to the general public using standard search engines and can be accessed using standard web browsers that do not require any special configuration. Standard browsers include Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer or Edge, and Google Chrome etc.
It is told that only 4% of the info is present in Surface Web.
Surface Web is made up of static and fixed. These are basically HTML files whose content never changes.
The Surface web commonly have the domains end with .com, .in, .org, .net
To access these websites the user does not require any special configuration to access.
Surface Web consists of the following:
Google
Wikipedia
YouTube
E-Commerce
Blogs etc.,
The Deep Web (or) Invisible Web (or) Hidden Web:
The Deep Web, there are pages which are easily approachable but not present in the result pages of any engines. These type of pages go to the deep web. You can access them by there links (if you have them) or by visiting the page it is connected to.
96% of the info is present in Deep web.
The Deep Web is estimated to be 500x the size of the Surface Web.
There is much unknown information available on the deep web. You can gain more knowledge about the deep web and their links when you enter into their web.
The content of the deep web is hidden behind HTTP forms
The deep web is made up of Dynamic web pages and URLs which changes frequently.
To find content on the web search engine uses web crawlers that follow hyperlinks through known protocol virtual port numbers. But these crawlers do not attempt to find dynamic pages.
The data in the deep web is still publicly accessible, though you will need special access to this data in the form of access credentials (username and password).
A good example of the data in the Deep Web is the pin you generate to access your bank account or your Gmail inbox. As you can see, both of these are easily accessible but still need special permissions.
Deep Web consists of the following info:
E-mail services
Social Media Services
Banking Services
Academic Information
Government Resources
Medical Records etc.,
In perspective, there are roughly twenty terabytes (TB) of data and roughly one billion documents on the surface web compared to 7,500 terabytes (TB) of discovered data and almost 600 billion discovered documents on the deep web.
The Dark Web:
The Dark Web still falls under the Deep Web umbrella; it's just a much, much smaller portion of the Deep Web. The Dark Web, or "Darknet," uses the masked IP address to intentionally hide web pages from search engines, web page search forms, and even standard web browsers.
It is a subset of Deep Web occupies .01% of Deep Web.
Around the world, there are some small networks which combine to form a darknet.
Some of the small networks named friend-to-friend and peer-to-peer.
Also, large networks include TOR, Freenet, I2P
Usually, these domains end with .onion
To access these onion sites we may require special browsers like TOR(The Onion Router)
It is found that most of the sales on the dark web are scams.
Even darknet is used for the sake of sending messages securely by several organizations, journalists etc.,
It is found that mainly Dark web consists of the following content.
Botnets: A series of PCs that are used for DDoS attacks.
Bitcoin Services: Digital Currency used especially for evil purposes.
Darknet Markets: Human Trafficking, Weed, Drugs etc.,
Financing: Conversion of currencies across countries illegally.
Illegal Pornography
Terrorism etc.,
Using Tor to access and browse the dark web is not illegal*. You will, though, have to be cautious. Surfing the dark web might not be illegal. But visiting certain sites, or making certain purchases, through the dark web is illegal.
To know more about TOR browser and its functionality visit:
I think now when someone asks you the same question I asked you at the start, you will say that it's not just google that comprises the internet.
If you have any queries or doubts feel free to contact us.