Internet Address

Providers 

The most common way to access the
Internet is through an Internet service
provider (ISP). The providers are already
connected to the Internet and provide
a path or connection for individuals to
access the Internet. Your college or university most likely provides you with free
access to the Internet either through its
local area networks or possibly through
a dial-up or telephone connection. There
are also some companies that offer free
Internet access.
The most widely used commercial
Internet service providers are national
and wireless providers.
• National service providers like Comcast, Qwest, and Verizon are the
most widely used. They provide access through standard telephone or
cable connections. Users can access the Internet from almost anywhere
within the country for a standard fee without incurring long-distance
telephone charges.
• Wireless service providers offer Internet connections for computers with
wireless modems and a wide array of wireless devices.
As we will discuss in Chapter 9, users connect to ISPs using one of a variety
of connection technologies including DSL, cable, and wireless modems.

 Browsers 

Browsers are programs that provide access to Web resources. This software connects you to remote computers, opens and transfers files, displays
text and images, and provides in one tool an uncomplicated interface to the Internet and Web documents.
Browsers allow you to explore, or to surf, the Web by
easily moving from one Web site to another. Four wellknown browsers are Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari,
Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Google Chrome.
(See Figure 2-2 .)
For browsers to connect to resources, the location
or address of the resources must be specified. These addresses are called
uniform resource locators (URLs). All URLs have at least two basic parts.
(See Figure 2-3 .) The first part presents the protocol used to connect to the
resource. As we will discuss in Chapter 9, protocols are rules for exchanging data between computers. The protocol http is used for Web traffic and is
the most widely used Internet protocol. The second part presents the domain
name. It indicates the specific address where the resource is located. In
Figure 2-3 the domain is identified as mtv.com. (Many URLs have additional
parts specifying directory paths, file names, and pointers.) The last part of the
domain name following the dot (.) is the top-level domain (TLD). It identifies the type of organization. (See Figure 2-4.) For example, .com indicates a
commercial site. The URL http://www.mtv.com connects your computer to a
computer that provides information about MTV.

Domain Organization Type
.com Commercial
.edu Educational
.gov Government
.mil U.S. military
.net Network
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