I understand all three concepts are inter-connected, but would love to get an ei5 explanation of each and how they’re related. Thank you in advance.
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The IP in TCP/IP stands for Internet Protocol. It defines how you can send a message from one computer to another, even if they are not directly connected and the message has to be routed through several other computers.
The internet is the network of computers (including phones and smart devices) all around the world that are connected and can communicate via the Internet Protocol. If you read this post, you’re doing so with a device that is part of the internet.
TCP is a protocol that makes communicating via IP a bit more convenient for computers by numbering messages, ordering them if they arrive out of order, re-requesting those that didn’t arrive, and doing so in a manner that doesn’t clog the network. It is what you’d use to download a file or send e-mails – it is important that the data arrives correct and complete.
The alternative to TCP is UDP which just sends messages without all those conveniences. It’s mostly useful for things like livestreams – if a message gets lost, your stream has a small hiccup and then continues.
The World Wide Web or WWW was at one point (and probably still is) the most iconic – and most relevant for the average consumer – use of the internet: Downloading HTML documents (via a protocol called HTTP, which itself uses TCP/IP), viewing them in a browser and clicking on hyperlinks that cause your browser to download and display a different HTML document (all the documents thus directly and indirectly connected forming a complicated network or “web”). Although modern social media is a far cry from those static HTML pages of old, it is still mostly based on the same technologies.
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