How the Internet Actually Works

The absolute basics of networking: what happens when you open a web page - how your request travels to a server and back, how machines find each other by address and name, and how they agree on a shared language.

1. The Journey of One Request When you open a web page, your request travels from your device through your home router, out through your ISP, across the internet to a server, and the answer comes back - all carried in small labeled chunks called packets.
2. Addresses & Names Every machine on the internet has an IP address - a number that identifies it. DNS is the internet's phone book: it turns human-friendly names like example.com into those numbers, so you can remember names while machines route by numbers.
3. Client, Server & Talking the Same Language The internet runs on the client/server model - one machine asks, another answers - and on protocols: shared agreements about how to talk. HTTP is the agreement for asking for web pages; TCP is the agreement that carries it reliably. The internet is many simple agreements stacked up.