Every site (and even each page of a site) can be gotten by an address called an url. That address may be written manually or appear automatically in a rectangular textfield that is located near the top of the graphical interface of the browser. It's an address like "http://www.site.com/location/of/file". It fits with the location of the remote server on which that Web page is written and with the location of that page on the server. If you write a real address in that textfield and then press ENTER the browser uses the address to send a request to the server hosting that Web page. This one provides the HTML code of the page, your browser decodes it and displays the page.

           That sequence of events is a communication protocol between your computer and the remote server. It's called the http protocol (HyperText Transfer Protocol).

           The power of http comes from the possibility this protocol offers to surf by simply clicking on hypertext links. HTML language (HyperText Markup Language) allows indeed to choose particular words or pictures on which one can click to get another Web page. These words usually appear with a blue color and underligned. They are called hypertext links. When one clicks on them the browser sends a request to the address that the author of the page has preset. The new page comes then to replace the preceeding one and you have the impression to navigate or surf on the Web.

           When the new page appears its address is automatically figured in the above mentionned rectangle.

           Note that when you position the cursor on the link with the mouse without clicking on it, the url of the link appears at the bottom of the graphical interface of the browser in the status bar. With some browsers it appears as tooltip.

           There are different types of browsers. The most known are Internet Explorer and Netscape. But there are other ones like Opera and Mosaic. They each got their own pecularities.

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