What is the difference between World Wide Web (WWW) and HTTP?

If you take a look at the address bar of your web browser, most probably you will see at least one of the two terms HTTP and WWW. Simply this implies that both HTTP and WWW are closely related to the internet, or the large computer network that you use to read this article. While HTTP is a standard protocol used to communicate on the internet, WWW is a large collection of hypertext documents accessed via the internet. WWW indicates that the web site is a part of the World Wide Web, and HTTP indicates that the browser and Web server uses HTTP to communicate.

More about WWW

WWW stands for World Wide Web, a large collection of documents and data organized accessible via the internet. The World Wide Web was a spin-off from the information systems used in the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) in the early 1990′s. Sir Tim Burnes Lee developed the basic instances of the World Wide Web as a platform for information used in CERN at different computer nodes and later was developed into the publicly used architecture today.

The World Wide Web uses a client server architecture, A client can access information stored in hypertext format on a server using an application working on the client’s computer which is known as a web browser. The information, not only text also images, audio files and video files, is stored in the servers such that it supports a language identified by the web browser, called Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). HTML is the medium in which the WWW is written. Even though we cannot signify a clear boundary to the WWW, it is clearly a part of the internet, which relies on the internet to transfer information from a web server to the web client. Standards pertaining the World Wide Web are maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

More about HTTP

HTTP is an acronym used for HyperText Transfer Protocol, which is an application protocol used to communicate over the internet. HTTP acts as the foundation of the World Wide Web because HTTP is the global language used by the web servers and client computers to exchange hypertext information. HTTP was also developed by Tim Burnes Lee and his team along with other components needed to implement the World Wide Web.

HTTP is based on nine simple methods, to communicate with the servers. These methods define how a web server or a client computer should respond to a request by another, how the information should be formatted and transferred. HTTP is called a stateless protocol, because each request performed at any time is independent of the previous requests; therefore, has no measure about the previous requests or actions. Even though HTTP is fundamental in the World Wide Web, it is only one of the protocols used on the internet. File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) are examples of other protocols used on the Internet, while HTTPS is a more secure HTTP protocol based on HTTP.