The HyperText Transfer Protocol, or HTTP, and HTML compose the fiber used to weave the Web. The Internet is the network that connects thousands of computers to each other at once, and this standard defines two or three types of computers within that network:

• The client, typically just an ordinary personal computer;
• The origin server or just server, which automatically responds to messages from the client;
• The proxy server or proxy, which receives messages and forwards them toward their intended recipients, sometimes after modifying them.

HTTP defines these in terms of a single request sent from a client and a single response returned from the server, with any number of proxies in between. However, each server is actually responding to requests a tiny fraction of a second apart, and some users are known to operate multiple sites at once.

See also

• DNS