How the web works
The World Wide Web is the huge collection of linked web pages stored on computers across the internet. Pages are written in HTML, kept on web servers, and fetched by your browser using HTTP. Paper 1 asks what copying a file from a remote computer to yours is called: downloading.
By the end of this page you can
- Explain how HTML, HTTP, web servers and browsers fit together
- Pick out the parts of a URL
- Follow a web page from server to screen
- Tell uploading from downloading
Goals tick themselves off as you try the activities below.
Photo: Victorgrigas, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Resized, JPEG q72.
Web servers like these store pages and send them to browsers on request.
How often it shows up in past papers
All papers14 of 14 papers
Last 55 of 5 · 2019–2025
Paper 1 counts come from our past-paper bank of CSEC Information Technology Paper 1s. The last-5 row shows how often it came up in the five most recent papers.
Inside this topic
- Pages, browsers and mailLocked
- A page’s journeyLocked
- Key termsLocked
- Test yourselfmarkedLocked
- Practise for real · 2 past questionsLocked