What is the Internet?

What is the Internet and what is it used for? These are two questions that not many people have asked themselves, given how commonplace and familiar it has become. To find out the answers and learn more interesting facts about the network of networks, don't miss the following article.

Telefónica Follow

Communication Team

03/11/2025

Reading time: 5 min

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This global, decentralised computer network has become absolutely essential at all levels in just a few decades.
Other concepts have developed in parallel with the Internet, such as search engines and browsers, without which the network would not be the same.
The origins of the Internet can be traced back to the Cold War, although the first website did not appear until the 1990s.
In 2025, 5.56 billion people are Internet users.

Perhaps not many people have ever wondered what the Internet is, as its use is completely internalised in our daily lives, although with differences derived from geographical or age-related issues.

We aim to use this article not only to explain what it is and what it is used for, but also to share some interesting facts about its origins, the first website, technologies that would not exist without this network of networks, and how many users there will be worldwide in 2025.

What is the Internet and what are its characteristics?

If we stick to the definition of the RAE (in Spanish), the Internet is understood to be the ‘global, decentralised computer network formed by the direct connection between computers using a special communication protocol’.

To this we could add that it works through a set of protocols that enable connections between different types of devices located anywhere in the world.

One of the main characteristics of the Internet is that it can be accessed anywhere in the world as long as there is a connection (although there may be other exceptional considerations that limit its use beyond mere connectivity, such as government blocks) and a compatible device.

To this universality must be added its heterogeneity, since it integrates different types of networks and services.

This heterogeneity also applies to its uses, which are extremely varied: leisure, work, education, health, communication, information, finance, etc.

Another general feature is the speed of information exchange, regardless of geographical distance.

What is the relationship between browsers and search engines and the Internet?

We could have chosen another concept, but both browsers and search engines are essential for using the Internet.

Born in the 1990s, search engines have a curious origin: the first one in history, Wandex, was created without the intention of being a search engine. Its original idea was to measure the size of the Internet for academic purposes, but its ability to index URLs paved the way for something that has almost become synonymous with the Internet for years.

Although the medium- to long-term impact of AI development remains to be seen, the fact is that in 2025, just over eight out of ten Internet users still use search engines.

As for which ones are the most popular, Google continues to enjoy a comfortable lead with an 89.73% market share. The next most popular, Bing, barely reaches 4% (3.98%, to be precise).

Another fundamental component of the Internet is browsers, which also emerged in the 1990s. Their origins date back to the advances made by Tim Berners-Lee, as we will see later in the section on the first website.

With regard to browser use in 2025, Chrome remains by far the most widely used for another year, accounting for 64.8% of the total, well above Safari’s 17.12%. No other browser exceeds a 5% share, although Edge comes very close with 4.93%.

When was the Internet born?

But when and why was it born? The origin of the Internet, like other technological issues such as the history of the space race, is clearly linked to the geopolitical context of the second half of the 20th century.

In the midst of the Cold War, the US government decided to set up an agency (known as ARPA, Advanced Research Projects Agency) in 1958 to try to create a network that would allow computers in different locations to communicate with each other.

Eleven years later, after some preliminary advances, ARPANET, considered the seed of the current Internet, was launched after successfully connecting two computers at the University of California for the first time.

Its use expanded with the incorporation of not only other academic centres but also administrative and military institutions.

With the incorporation of the TCP/IP protocol in 1983, the network known as the Internet was born. This advance would not have been possible without resources such as HTML and HTTP.

What was the first website in history?

As we mentioned a few paragraphs above when discussing browsers, the first website in history was launched in 1991.

A web page, http://info.cern.ch/, which can still be visited today and is marked by standards very different from those that govern today’s websites: simple, with only text and hyperlinks, no colours and no audiovisual support.

Berners-Lee developed this first web portal with the intention of building a tool that would allow the design of a space in which to share information, as well as laying the foundations for building hypertext.