A URL is a website address, while a URI is a more precise synonym. Web browsers display the URL of the currently viewed page and clicking on a hyperlink takes the browser to a new URL. URLs can be composed of words or IP addresses. Pages starting with https:// are secure for entering personal information. FTP is used for file transfer and has its own URL format.
Since websites are considered resources and every website worldwide has a unique address for a uniform addressing scheme, “Uniform Resource Locator” (formerly Universal Resource Locator) or URL is a fancy name for the site address web. An actually more precise but lesser known synonym is URI, or Uniform Resource Identifier. The term “URI” developed after URL had already gained widespread public use; thus URI is used by those involved in the development, standards and protocols of the Internet, while URL is the prevalent term outside these circles.
A web browser is software used to browse the World Wide Web. Every browser has a URL window that displays the address of the currently viewed web page. Clicking on a hyperlink within a web page will take the browser to a new URL or web address, changing the text within the URL window. In tabbed browsing, the address of the active tab will be shown in the browser’s URL window. A website address can also be manually typed or pasted into the URL field.
A URL can be composed of words, such as “wisegeek.com” or the corresponding Internet Protocol (IP) address: 69.93.118.236. Both addresses will take the navigator to the wiseGEEK site. The vast majority of navigation is done by entering the website name, as names are easier to remember than numbers. Most people don’t even know the IP addresses of the websites they visit, but each name points to a unique numerical address.
It’s a good idea to be at least somewhat familiar with what a website address looks like. Common web pages start with http:// for HyperText Transfer Protocol. Pages starting with http:// are not encrypted, so any information passing between your computer and the Internet can be “seen” by eavesdroppers. For this reason, we do not recommend entering personal information into a web page that begins with http:// in the URL window.
If you are about to enter personal information on a web page, first check that the URL starts with https://. The extra “s” stands for “secure” and indicates that the information exchanged between your computer and the Internet will be encrypted, making it useless for eavesdropping or hackers. If any or all of the transmission is captured en route, it will only appear as blocks of garbled characters.
When downloading or uploading files to a website, the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is often used. In this case the URL address will start with ftp://, followed by the website address. Often people use special FTP clients (software) to handle the transfer of large files more easily, rather than using a web browser. FTP clients are especially useful for domain maintenance and are more streamlined than a web browser.
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