The Growth Of The Web

The World Wide Web is exploding in size. From
a barely noticeable handful of websites 20 years
ago, it has mushroomed into a gigantic resource
In 2010 alone, around 21.4 million new websites
were added to the Web. And as huge countries
like China, India, Indonesia, and Brazil get more
and more of their population online, it’s only
set to get bigger and bigger.

Most visited websites 

Google publishes a list of the number of 

monthly unique visitors the world’s other 

most popular websites receive. While the 

exact number remains a mystery for Google

itself, it’s safe to assume that it would top 

this list.

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Imagine facing a 2-day trek 

every time you wanted to check

your e-mail. That’s the prospect

facing many who live in rural 

parts of mountainous Nepal. 

Here, on the “Roof of the World

fewer than three percent of the

country’s 29 million people have

direct Internet access. Nepal  

is far from alone. There is a  

huge digital divide between the

Internet haves and have-nots 

around the world. All kinds of 

initiatives, both big and small,

are working to shrink the gap.

According to Internet World Stats  

in 2010, more than three-quarters  

of the U.S. population were Internet 

users. By contrast, just 0.3 percent 

of the population of the African 

nation of Sierra Leone used  

the Internet. 

Network Nepal

Many communities in rural Nepal are remote, at high 

altitude, cut off by steep valleys, and poorly served by

roads or electricity. Building long-distance Wi-Fi 

networks in this terrain has been a huge challenge. 

Materials have been carried up by hand to construct 

the relay towers that beam the signals through the 

narrow valleys. The highest tower stands 11,800 ft 

(3,600 m) above sea level and is manned by a yak 

farmer, who must check the connections every day.

Online impact

The Internet has brought 

together isolated Nepalese 

communities. School children 

work online, farmers can buy 

and sell on a local trading 

website, and health workers use 

webcams so patients can be 

examined by hospital doctors in 

the capital, Kathmandu.

Everest 3G

In 2010, the Nepalese telecom 

company Ncell brought 

wireless 3G Internet and phone 

coverage to Mount Everest—

its climbers, guides, and nearby 

villages. Since there is no 

electricity supply, the system’s  

10 base stations are powered 

by solar panels, with batteries 

for backup. The highest of the 

stations is 17,060 ft (5,200 m) 

above sea level. 

How the Web is run

The World Wide Web is huge and complex,

so who runs it all? Surely, someone must be in

charge? It’s not the Internet service providers

(ISPs) who connect you to the Internet, or the

telecom companies who supply phone lines and

infrastructure. Nor is it national governments or

the UN. The answer is that no single organization

administers all websites and the content that

flows between them.

“The Internet is

not a thing, a place,

a single technology,

or a mode of

governance. It is

an agreement.”

John Gage, Director of Science,

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Internet to splinternet?

The Internet has relied on

agreement between many parties

to survive and prosper worldwide.

Could a lack of future agreement,

censorship, and other restrictions

placed on websites by national

governments lead to a “splinternet,”

with different standards in different

nations? No one is certain, but

changes are likely as more and

more of the four billion people

currently without access get online.

The good side

of the Web

The founders of the World Wide Web made it freely 

available because they thought it could be a 

powerful force for good. In many ways, they were 

right. In its relatively short life so far, the World 

Wide Web has been an astonishing success, 

helping to inform and transform millions of lives. It 

provides a platform for new businesses, puts 

people with shared interests in touch, and 

provides a convenient, regularly updated source  

of news and entertainment for millions every day.

Free software 

The Web holds a growing collection of 

computer programs that are free for anyone 

with Internet access to download. People 

often take these resources for granted, but it is 

quite remarkable that the results of thousands 

of hours of hard work are given away. The two 

main kinds of free software are freeware and 

open-source programs. Freeware is software 

that is free for personal or non-commercial 

use. Open-source programs go even further, 

offering the entire program code and 

background details so that fellow software 

designers can alter or improve the program.

Wayback Machine

Interested in time travel? The Wayback  

Machine is a gigantic archive of web pages 

dating back to 1996. Users can see what a 

website’s content was like at different points in 

the past—for free. In 2007, the California-based 

organization performed a massive web crawl 

in order to take a global snapshot of the 

World Wide Web. It cataloged and 

archived two billion web pages. 

Archives like this will be invaluable 

to future Internet historians. 

MIT’s OpenCourseWare  

offers free lecture notes, exam 

papers, and video tutorials for 

2,000 different academic 

courses. More than a million 

students and educators visit 

the site each month.

Sharing expertise

The Web is bursting with knowledge on a vast  

range of subjects. Experts and enthusiasts give  

up their time to offer insights and information  

on personal websites or take part in collaborative 

projects such as iFixit, which offers repair manuals 

for hundreds of electrical devices. Surfers can 

download sports rules and coaching tips from 

governing bodies, identify wildlife they have spotted, 

learn a language, or get advice on how to improve 

their paintings, photography, or music, all for free. 

On December 10, 2010, 

Freerice.com users donated

more than 60 million grains

of rice to starving people 

worldwide. All they had to do

was click on advertisers’ 

links on websites. 

Freecycle 

In 2003, recycling activist Deron Beal 

sent out an email to about 40 friends 

and local charities around Tucson, 

Arizona. He wanted to set up a 

system in which people offered 

unwanted goods to others rather than 

throw them away. The Freecycle 

Network now operates in more than 

85 countries and has more than seven 

million members. Its online notice 

boards advertise all kinds of gifted 

items, from baby carriages to printers. 

Michelle Miles, a 19-year-old 

from Arkansas, began a 

charitable cause on Facebook.

Her “Race to End Cancer”  

has more than six million 

members and has raised  

more than $80,000. 

Helping others 

Charities and campaign groups use the Web  

to raise awareness of issues. Their websites 

feature facts and figures, video case studies, and 

interviews. Many provide helpful free resources, 

such as advice on how to deal with bullying, 

eating disorders, alcohol, drugs, or gang violence. 

Charities can raise funds by running online 

campaigns or organizing virtual volunteering, in 

which people donate their time or skills over the 

Internet to help a cause some distance away.  

The bad side  

of the Web

Most people build web pages in order to  

educate, inform, or entertain. Some, however,  

misuse the fabulous resource at their fingertips,  

and play pranks, start rumors, or build websites  

full of lies. Some use the Web, email, and instant 

messages to upset and intimidate people. Others 

spread malicious computer code that can damage 

computers or steal passwords, allowing criminals  

to divert money from victims’ bank accounts. 

Viruses and worms 

Computer viruses are types of malware that make 

copies of themselves and run automatically on a 

computer, often destroying files or even erasing hard 

disks. When a file containing a virus is sent to another 

computer, it can become infected, too. Worms  

are viruses that use network connections to spread 

automatically. Identified in 2008, the Conficker worm 

has infected millions of machines, including computers 

in the French navy and British police. It may have 

caused more than $9.5 billion of damage. 

Offensive sites 

Many websites display images or discuss 

subjects, such as violence or sexual 

content, that are unsuitable for children 

and distasteful to many adults. Internet 

filters, such as Net Nanny, Safe Eyes, and 

Google’s SafeSearch, can prevent  

these sites from being viewed by  

people who do not want to  

or should not see them.

Malware 

Computer software that is sent  

to your computer with mischievous 

or criminal intent is called malware. 

It includes viruses, worms, Trojans, 

and spyware. Malware can be just  

a harmless, if irritating, prank or 

designed for more serious purposes, 

such as stealing credit card and 

bank account details or crippling  

a victim’s computer. Malware is  

a massive problem, with around 

60,000 new malware threats 

identified every day.

In 2009, 11 people in China 

were found guilty of using 

Trojans and other malware. 

They had stolen more than 

five million user names  

and passwords.