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How the Internet Works

A short tour of the network of networks that connects the modern world.

6 min readUpdated July 19, 2026

Packets and protocols

Data is broken into small packets that travel independently across networks and are reassembled at the destination. Protocols like TCP/IP define the rules.

Names and addresses

Every device has a numeric IP address. The Domain Name System (DNS) translates readable names like smartz.wiki into those addresses.

The web on top

The World Wide Web is one application that runs on the internet, using HTTP to move HTML, images, and code between servers and browsers.