Certain agreements have been made in order to be able to easily find a certain source on the Internet. Every text, file, web page, ... is identified by a URL (Uniform or Universal Resource Locator).
This URL has the following notation : Service :// Server(Host):port / directory path / file
For example: https://www.cursustekst.be

E-mail or Electronic Mail is the most widely used service on the Internet. E-mail allows 30 to 60 million users to exchange messages with each other. You can also easily change these messages and possibly forward them to someone else.
When sending a message, you must specify a destination address. This address consists of 2 parts separated by the @ sign : first the name of the user and after the @ sign the name of the Mailserver or mailhost (ie the post office). For example : firstname.lastname@gmail.com
The mail host keeps track of all your messages until you log in to the Internet and retrieve the messages.
The messages follow the shortest route over the Internet to the mail host of the recipient. This can take from a few minutes to several hours depending on the amount of data currently and on that route over the Internet.
The processing of the post messages is completed using 2 protocols: SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) and POP3 (Post Office Protocol).
The SMTP protocol is used when sending a message.
The POP protocol manages the storage and forwarding of the incoming messages to the user when he logs on to the Internet.
The great power of E-mail is the possibility to send the same message to several people. This feature has led to the creation of discussion lists.
A discussion list is set up by a user of the Internet who wants to exchange information about a certain topic. Other users can then subscribe to that list by sending their E-mail address to it. When a member of the list sends in a message, this message is forwarded to all members of the list.
In practice, a specific program (eg listserv) is used for the smooth operation of such a discussion list.
You can retrieve your mail with an E-mail program such as eg. Eudora, Outlook (MS-Office), Outlook Express, Mozilla Thunderbird, Windows Mail, Opera, Mulberry, Pegasus, IncrediMail, etc…
If you also have a webmail address, you can manage your mail via the website of the service provider (e.g. google.com, hotmail.com, Yahoo.com, etc…)

The newsgroups or news forums comprise more than 11,000 discussion groups. Unlike the discussion lists, the news forums are completely public and do not require subscribing.
The newsgroups are divided into large groups. There are groups about culture, music, media, etc.
For example: comp. is the group with everything about computer science. Each main group is then further subdivided into subgroups. For example : comp.lang.c = computer languages c (programming language C).

One of the first protocols developed involved the transfer of files between computers. The FTP (File Transfer Protocol) describes the way in which a connection can be made to another computer on the Internet to download (copy) files from that computer or upload (copy) files to that computer.
When connecting, you must provide a username and password. The username "anonymous" (anonymous) is sometimes recognized and as password you have to enter your E-mail address.
When you have gone through this identification phase, you can search the directories of the FTP server for that one file you need.
With an FTP program you can upload files to your own web space or website. Some programs: FileZilla, SmartFTP, WS-FTP, CuteFTP, AceFTP.

The internet is like a spider web. Since the late 1960s, people have been working on connecting computers to each other (eg the ARPAnet). Today, all those computers form a global spider web (hence the name World Wide Web). In this web there are two types of computers, the clients and the servers.
The clients or customers retrieve information from the many larger computers (such as mainframes or supercomputers).
The servers or servers are large repositories of information files (texts, drawings, photos, video images, sound,...).
The client and server computers can communicate with each other thanks to the HTTP protocol. HTTP(Hypertext Transfer Protocol) ensures that the hypertext files can be used correctly.
A hypertext file contains text and references to other information such as photos, drawings, sound, video images, etc. that are located on the server.
These references are also called hyperlinks (from the English word link : link, connection). They are usually shown in the text in color and underlined. When you click on a link with the mouse, you get to see another hypertext page (or web page). This is also called "surfing".
A hypertext page is created with a special computer language, namely HTML (Hypertext Markup Language).
The HTML documents (or files) are saved as plain text (ASCII or Unicode). This means that you can create and edit an HTML document with any word processor or editor program. You only need to know the correct marks (markups) that you have to place in the text to create a hyperlink or to format the text.
These markings are in the text between < and > characters.
For example : right click on a free space of a web page and choose View source.
To create these web pages you can also use a special program that automatically places these markers in the text. You just have to fill in the correct references.
Some computers on the Internet have a website that is specifically designed to locate information on the Web. These websites are called "search engines" or search pages.
You can enter a word or a few words and the computer will then search for web pages that contain that word or words. A list of links to web pages will then be displayed where you may be able to learn more about the topic you are looking for.
Some examples : Google, Yahoo, Alta Vista, Webcrawler, Lycos, Infoseek, ...
To surf the internet you use a “browser” program.
Some examples: Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer, Safari, Avant browser, Netscape, Tencent Traveler, Maxthon, etc…