The Internet

1. Presentation by: Cynthia Okyere Form 4 East The Internet What is the internet? Activities possible with it History Advantages & Disadvantages Hardware components for internet connectivity

2. What is the internet? • The Internet is a large group of computers that are connected to each other. • The internet is used to send information quickly between computers around the world. • It has millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and government networks, which together carry lots of different information and services. • It can be used to research on anything and is suitable for people of all ages and peers. • The internet is known to have become a worldwide addiction especially social and entertainment sites.

3. NB: Mozilla Firefox & Internet explorer are the most commonly used amongst web browsers Pages are viewed using browsers like the below:

4. Different types of sites and offers available on the internet • The internet is laced with all kinds of offers and websites for users • Search engines like google, msn…etc. cover an incredibly wide area of the internet. • Google for example can be used to find almost anything on the net by linking you to websites that may with hold what one is searching for. • Entertainment • Social websites, e.g. Facebook, twitter, myspace…etc. • Sites for videos,music, pics…etc, e.gYoutube, photbucket…etc. • Downloading of music, videos e.g. Limewire, frostwire…etc • Education and news • Websites on current news and global issues, e.g BBC, MSN • Sites for Research, search engines like google, msn, bing, etc

5. Popular sites:

6. History of the internet • The History of the Internet has precursors that date back to the 19th century, especially the telegraph system, • It started off with the concept of transmitting data between two different places, connected in some way actually predates the introduction of the first computers. • However, seeing as such communication systems were typically limited to point to point communication between two end devices, it bared several disadvantages. • And so, once the idea was there, the researching and exploring of how to improve the system began. • Over time, after computers were invented, the mere idea of network communication began to evolve into what we know now to be the internet. • The invention of the internet marked a significant breakthrough in the history of communication and technology.

7. Advantages & disadvantages of the internet • Communication: • The main target of internet has always been the communication. • we can avail the facilities of e-mail; we can chat. There are plenty messenger services in offering. With help of such services, it has become very easy to establish a kind of global friendship where you can share and explore other cultures of different ethnicity. • And it is also easier to exchange important information • Information • Information is probably the biggest advantage internet is offering. • Any kind of information on any topic is available on the Internet. • The search engines like Google, yahoo make researching somewhat easier. You can almost find any type of data on almost any kind of subject that you are looking for.

8. There is a huge amount of information available on the internet for just about every subject known to man, ranging from government law and services, trade fairs and conferences, market information, new ideas and technical support, etc. • Students and children are among the top users who surf the Internet for research. Today, it is almost required that students should use the Internet for research for the purpose of gathering resources. Teachers have started giving assignments that require research on the Internet. • Services • Many services are now provided on the internet such as online banking, job seeking, purchasing tickets for movies, guidance services, and hotel reservations. Often these services are not available off-line and can cost you more.

9. Disadvantages • Theft of Personal informationIf you use the Internet, you may be facing grave danger as your personal information such as name, address, credit card number etc. can be accessed by hackers • Spamming: Spamming refers to sending unwanted e-mails, which provide no purpose and needlessly obstruct the entire system. • Virus threatVirus is nothing but a program which disrupts the normal functioning of your computer systems. Computers attached to internet are more prone to virus attacks and they can end up into crashing your whole hard disk.

10. Internet Security • Internet security is a branch of computersecurity specifically related to the Internet. • Its objective is to establish rules and measures to use against attacks over the Internet. • The Internet represents an insecure channel for exchanging information leading to a high risk of intrusion or fraud, such as phishing or pharming. • Phishing is the practice of using false e-mails and copies of legitimate websites to extract financial data from computer users for purposes of identity theft • Pharming is An Internet scam that involves misdirecting a user to a fraudulent Web site or proxy server by exploiting weaknesses in DNS (Domain Name Server) • Different methods have been used to protect the transfer of data, including encryption. • To prevent viruses and such from attacking your system, anti-virusesare used. e.g. Avira, Norton…etc

11. Hardware components needed for connectivity Routers are physical devices that join multiple wired or wireless networks together. A network hub is a component that allows multiple computers and other devices to be connected via local area network (LAN). A network switch is a small hardware device that joins multiple computers together within one local area network (LAN).

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