Internet and Web Browsing

About 6 min · Computer Knowledge · English

Time worked out from the lesson's 378 words at 150 words a minute, plus a minute for each question.

Internet and Web Browsing is a fundamental topic in the Computer Knowledge section of HSSC CET. Questions from this area test your understanding of how the internet works, browser functionality, search engine operations, and basic file transfer concepts. This topic is relatively scoring because the concepts are practical and based on everyday computer usage.

Key ideas

Internet vs World Wide Web (WWW): Internet is the global network of connected computers; WWW is a service that runs on the internet using HTTP protocol to access web pages. The internet existed before the web.
Web Browser: Software application used to access and display web pages. It interprets HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code to render websites visually. Examples include Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Safari.
URL (Uniform Resource Locator): The complete web address used to access a resource. Structure: protocol://domain-name/path. Example: https://www.haryana.gov.in/departments
Search Engine: A software system that searches a database of internet sites based on keywords. It uses crawlers (bots) to index web pages and algorithms to rank results.
HTTP vs HTTPS: HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) transfers data without encryption. HTTPS adds SSL/TLS encryption for secure communication—look for the padlock icon in the address bar.

Watch out for

Confusing Internet with WWW: Students write "WWW was invented in 1969" → Wrong. The internet (ARPANET) started in 1969; WWW was invented by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989.
Mixing up HTTP and HTML: HTTP is a protocol for transferring data; HTML is a markup language for creating web pages. They serve completely different purposes.
Thinking browsers and search engines are the same: Chrome is a browser (software to view pages); Google is a search engine (service to find pages). You can use Firefox browser to access Google search engine.

Quick reference

Internet = Network; WWW = Service on that network using HTTP
URL Format: Protocol://Domain/Path/Filename
Download = From Web to PC; Upload = From PC to Web
HTTPS = Secure (has padlock); HTTP = Not encrypted
Ctrl+D = Add Bookmark; Ctrl+H = View History; Ctrl+Shift+N = Incognito Mode

Check yourself: 3 questions

1. Which of the following is a web browser?
2. What does URL stand for?
3. Which protocol is used to transfer files from a server to your computer?

This lesson is cut from the topic's note, not rewritten. Fact-checked on 18 Oct 2026: an AI-assisted check of this note against cited sources; the errors it found were corrected that day. Some errors may remain. The questions are from Shishya's validated question bank.

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