Uses of Internet

Internet is the foremost important tool and the prominent resource that is being used by almost every person across the globe. It connects millions of computers, webpages, websites, and servers. Using the internet we can send emails, photos, videos, and messages to our loved ones. Or in other words, the internet is a widespread interconnected network of computers and electronics devices(that support internet). It creates a communication medium to share and get information online. If your device is connected to the Internet then only you will be able to access all the applications, websites, social media apps, and many more services. Internet nowadays is considered the fastest medium for sending and receiving information.

Origin Of the Internet

The internet came in the year 1960 with the creation of the first working model called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency). It allowed multiple computers to work on a single network which was their biggest achievement at that time. ARPANET use packet switching to communicate multiple computer systems under a single network. In October 1969, using ARPANET first message was transferred from one computer to another. After that technology continues to grow.

The Internet is a global networking system that can be used on most devices nowadays and has become an essential part of our lives. In today’s technological era, most companies are getting their operations done over the Internet. There are various uses of the Internet by which companies and individuals are making their daily tasks more productive and more comfortable.Here, we have discussed the major uses of the Internet that play a vital role in daily life:Online Booking & Orders

The Internet has made it a lot easier for people to book tickets for buses, trains, and flights (domestic and international) directly using their devices from anywhere. People can also book a taxi by choosing their current location, and they will be picked up or dropped off at a specified location. Now no one needs to wait in long queues for their turn to book tickets at the ticket counter.

Besides, people can order a wide variety of products at home using the Internet and devices. It can range from grocery products to ready-to-eat, fashionable clothes to medicines. Most items can be ordered at home and received directly at the door.

Cashless Transactions

Most countries are promoting cashless transactions and digital payments. This helps people not carry much cash. People can pay their bills through debit or credit cards using POS devices. These devices are connected to the payment gateway on the Internet. Besides, People can also use their smartphones and the Internet for processing transactions on UPI (Unified Payment Interface). It does not even require them to carry their cards. The UPI payment method is continuously evolving and is expected to cover most transactions shortly.

Education

Most devices nowadays are connected through the Internet. The Internet has the availability of broad educational content on any topic of different types. People can study the relevant topic just by spending a couple of minutes on the Internet. Internet Search engines help people quickly find the relevant study material in multiple formats (such as images, videos, documents, etc.). This helps eliminate the need to go to the library to read several books to find the desired information.

Besides, the Internet has also enabled students to participate in their classes through video conferencing, where students can connect with their teachers or professionals anywhere in the world.

Online Banking & Trading

The way of banking has changed after the introduction of the Internet. The Internet has made banking online where people can manage their bank accounts while sitting at home or traveling abroad. Nowadays, most of the features of banking are right in people’s hands. With the help of online banking, people can securely transfer the money from one account to another, change their ATM pins, apply for physical or virtual credit cards, update credit card limits, enable or disable international transactions, track their transactions, and many more. Also, they can even raise an online complaint or contact to bank’s support staff.

Apart from this, the Internet has made it a lot easier for people to trade in the Stock market from anywhere. People can easily buy, sell, or manage stocks online.

Research

The Internet is playing a significant role in the field of research. Before the use of the Internet, it was quite hard to look for information about anything. People had to go through hundreds of books for references to find the desired information. However, the Internet has made it a lot easier, and anyone can find the required information with some clicks only. In research, people can study the success and failed research and work further for the improvements. Uses of the Internet in research have been incredibly beneficial for researchers.

Electronic Mail

Email or electronic mail is one of the first significant uses of the Internet. Email has enabled faster communication between people on the Internet. Using email, people can quickly share information, and data files, such as images, audio, video, and other types of files. The use of email has significantly reduced paper use, which was the primary source of communication in the olden days. Anyone can have a free email address and can easily communicate with others. This has also reduced the load on the physical mail system, although it is still in use.

Job Search

Getting a job is a lot easier than before. Any person can view relevant job information using the Internet. Earlier, people had to go through each company individually to know if a position was vacant or not. However, the Internet has enabled people to find employment sitting at home to suit their interests. Many websites provide details about job availability. Once people submit their resumes, these websites keep informing them about vacancies through email. Besides, each well-known company has its website, where the company posts about the vacancy opening. So, just sitting at home, people can search, apply for jobs and even give their interviews and see or know their results.

Social Networking

Social networking sites have connected people around the world. Social networking is an essential part of the Internet. With the help of the Internet, people can form social groups where they can share information, thoughts, and ideas about anything. The social networking platform is the largest source of content, covering everything from informative content to entertainment. The best thing is that people don’t have to pay anything to use these services. This helps businesses develop their community and promote their products.

Collaboration

Due to the Internet, communication has become easier and better. You can easily connect with anyone on the Internet, either by texting, calling, or video calling. It has created new cooperation opportunities for the people. There are several online chat software and websites that help people create group discussions or meetings. It helps businesses to have a hassle-free discussion. Therefore, people do not always need to travel long distances to attend meetings. This helps people avoid unnecessary travel and save time for productive use.

Besides, there are many cloud-based software and websites that offer people to work on the same project simultaneously at the same time. People from different places can easily connect and support their specialties using the Internet.

Entertainment

The Internet is the most effective means of entertainment. There are various options available on the Internet, which people can try, such as watching movies, playing online games, listening to songs, etc. The Internet has also made it easy for people to download entertainment items to their local storage. Using the Internet, people can also share their videos, songs, and pictures online with others. Also, nowadays, people can watch live TV or sports on the Internet.

E-Commerce

The Internet is not just limited to ordering things; it can also be used to sell products. Many e-commerce websites allow businesses and individuals to sell their products. Products are purchased by these e-commerce companies, stored in their warehouses, packaged in their brand packaging, and distributed by themselves. E-commerce companies charge some commission to distribute goods to customers. Also, they offer great discounts and offers to customers. The best thing is that customers do not have to go to physical stores.

Besides, sellers can also create their websites and list their products there. They can refer to all information about the product, answer customer questions and provide online payment options to their customers. All these things are possible on the Internet.

File Transfer

The Internet has made file transfer between systems or devices easier. With FTP (File Transfer Protocol), data can be securely exchanged over the Internet. FTP is mainly beneficial when large files need to be transferred because email allows sharing files of limited size. FTP is the best way to exchange information between two stakeholders. This method is still quite popular and in use.

Navigation

The navigation mechanism is one of the most beneficial uses of the Internet. Once a user puts the location in the online maps (such as Google maps), it provides all the details about that location. Users can even find the best route to visit that particular location. The map also provides the distance between the locations. The best thing about navigation is that it will provide the shortest possible route with less traffic. One can also search for any specific place like the nearest hotel, restaurants, banks, ATM, etc. Apart from this, a person can share a live location with others using the Internet and the navigation technique.

Advertising

Because most people use the Internet, it is the best means of promoting something or advertising. There are options for paid promotion as well as free promotion. There are many advertising platforms on the Internet that help promote products or businesses online. These platforms advertise products on other related websites using banners, videos, email, etc. They charge for these advertisements according to distance, keywords, audience, etc. However, one can also use social media platforms to create online groups or communities and advertise freely.

Real-time updates

The Internet is helping people to keep up with what is happening around the world. Many news and information websites provide real-time updates on various categories, such as politics, history, news, geology, leisure, sports, technology, marketing, and more. One can easily select the category of interest and stay connected with updates. The presence of e-newspapers and magazines is updating people and helping to cut paper usage.

More Uses of the Internet

Some of the important usages of the internet are:

1. Online Businesses (E-commerce): Online shopping websites have made our life easier, e-commerce sites like Amazon, Flipkart, and Myntra are providing very spectacular services with just one click and this is a great use of the Internet.
2. Cashless transactions: All the merchandising companies are offering services to their customers to pay the bills of the products online via various digital payment apps like Paytm, Google pay, etc. UPI payment gateway is also increasing day by day. Digital payment industries are growing at a rate of 50% every year too because of the INTERNET.
3. Education: It is the internet facility that provides a whole bunch of educational material to everyone through any server across the web. Those who are unable to attend physical classes can choose any course from the internet and can have the point-to-point knowledge of it just by sitting at home. High-class faculties are teaching online on digital platforms and providing quality education to students with the help of the Internet.
4. Social Networking: The purpose of social networking sites and apps is to connect people all over the world. With the help of social networking sites, we can talk, and share videos, and images with our loved ones when they are far away from us. Also, we can create groups for discussion or meetings.
5. Entertainment: The Internet is also used for entertainment. There are numerous entertainment options available on the internet like watching movies, playing games, listening to music, etc. You can also download movies, games, songs, TV Serial, etc., easily from the internet.

 Advantages of the Internet

1. Online Banking and Transaction: The Internet allows us to transfer money online by the net banking system. Money can be credited or Debited from one account to the other.
2. Education, online jobs, freelancing: Through the Internet, we can get more jobs via online platforms like Linkedin and reach more job providers. Freelancing on the other hand has helped the youth to earn a side income and the best part is all this can be done via the INTERNET.
3. Entertainment: There are numerous options of entertainment online we can listen to music, play games can watch movies, and web series, listen to podcasts, and youtube itself is a hub of knowledge as well as entertainment.
4. New Job roles: The Internet has given us access to social media, and digital products so we are having numerous new job opportunities like digital marketing and social media marketing online businesses are earning huge amounts of money just because the internet is the medium to help us to do so.
5. Best Communication Medium: The communication barrier has been removed from the Internet. You can send messages via email, Whatsapp, and Facebook. Voice chatting and video conferencing are also available to help you to do important meetings online.
6. Comfort to humans: Without putting any physical effort you can do so many things like shopping online it can be anything from stationaries to clothes, books to personal items, etc. You can books train and plane tickets online.
7. GPS Tracking and google maps: Yet another advantage of the internet is that you can find any road in any direction, and areas with less traffic with the help of GPS on your mobile.

Disadvantages of the Internet

1. Time wastage: Wasting too much time on the internet surfing on social media apps and doing nothing decreases your productivity rather than wasting time scrolling social media apps one should utilize that time in doing something skillful and even more productive.
2. Bad impacts on health: Spending too much time on the internet causes bad impacts on your health physical body needs some outdoor games exercise and many more things. Looking at the screen for a longer duration causes serious impacts on the eyes.
3. Cyber Crimes: Cyberbullying, spam, viruses, hacking, and stealing data are some of the crimes which are on the verge these days. Your system which contains all the confidential data can be easily hacked by cybercriminals.
4. Effects on children: Small children are heavily addicted to the Internet watching movies, and games all the time is not good for their overall personality as well as social development.
5. Bullying and spreading negativity: The Internet has given a free tool in the form of social media apps to all those people who always try to spread negativity with very revolting and shameful messages and try to bully each other which is wrong.

How is the Internet set up?

The internet is set up with the help of physical optical fiber data transmission cables or copper wires and various other networking mediums like LAN, WAN, MAN, etc. For accessing the Internet even the 2g, 3g, and 4g services and the wifi require these physical cable setups to access the Internet. There is an authority named ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) located in the USA which manages the Internet and protocols related to it like IP addresses.

How does the internetwork?

The actual working of the internet takes place with the help of clients and servers. Here the client is a laptop that is directly connected to the internet and servers are the computers connected indirectly to the Internet and they are having all the websites stored in those large computers. These servers are connected to the internet with the help of ISP (Internet Service Providers) and will be identified with the IP address. Each website has its Domain name as it is difficult for any person to always remember the long numbers or strings. So, whenever you search any domain name in the search bar of the browser the request will be sent to the server and that server will try to find the IP address from the Domain name because it cannot understand the domain name. After getting the IP address the server will try to search the IP address of the Domain name in a Huge phone directory that in networking is known as a DNS server (Domain Name Server). For example, if we have the name of a person and you can easily find the Aadhar number him/her from the long directory as simple as that.

So after getting the IP address the browser will pass on the further request to the respective server and now the server will process the request to display the content of the website that the client wants. If you are using a wireless medium of Internet like 3g and 4g or other mobile data then the data will start flowing from the optical cables and will first reach to towers from there the signals will reach your cell phones and Pc’s through electromagnetic waves. And if you are using routers then optical fiber connecting to your router will help in connecting those light-induced signals into electrical signals and with the help of ethernet cables internet reaches your computers and hence the required information.

What is an IP address?

IP address stands for internet protocol address. Every PC/Local machine is having an IP address and that IP address is provided by the Internet Service Providers (ISPs). These are some sets of rules which govern the flow of data whenever a device is connected to the Internet. It differentiates computers, websites, and routers. Just like human identification cards like Aadhar cards, Pan cards, or any other unique identification documents. Every laptop and desktop has its unique IP address for identification. It’s an important part of internet technology. An IP address is displayed as a set of four-digit like 192.154.3.29. Here each number on the set ranges from 0 to 255. Hence, the total IP address range from 0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255.

You can check the IP address of your Laptop or desktop by clicking on the windows start menu ->then right click and go to network ->in that go to status and then Properties their you can see the IP address. There are four different types of IP addresses are available:

1. Static IP address
2. Dynamic IP address
3. Private IP address
4. Public IP address

World Wide Web(WWW)

The worldwide web is a collection of all the web pages, and web documents that you can see on the Internet by searching their URLs (Uniform Resource Locator) on the Internet. For example,rxharun.com is the URL of the GFG website and all the content of this site like webpages and all the web documents are stored on the worldwide web. Or in other words, the world wide web is an information retrieval service the web. It provides users with a huge array of documents that are connected using hypertext or hypermedia links. Here, hyperlinks are known as electronic connections that link the related data so that users can easily access the related information and hypertext allows the user to pick a word or phrase from text, and using this keyword or word or phrase can access other documents that contain additional information related to that word or keyword or phrase. World wide web is a project which is created by Timothy Berner Lee in 1989, for researchers to work together effectively at CERN. It is an organization, named the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which was developed for the further development of the web.

Difference between Worldwide Web and Internet

The difference between the world wide web and the internet are:

• All the web pages and web documents are stored there on the World wide web and to find all that stuff you will have a specific URL for each website. Whereas the internet is a global network of computers that is accessed by the World wide web.
• The worldwide web is a service whereas the internet is an infrastructure.
• The worldwide web is a subset of the internet whereas the internet is the superset of the world wide web.
• The worldwide web is software-oriented whereas the internet is hardware-oriented.
• The worldwide web uses HTTP whereas the internet uses IP addresses.
• The Internet can be considered as a Library whereas all the kinds of stuff like books from different topics present over there can be considered as World wide web.