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A network is a group of computers that interact with each other (The largest one being the internet). There are multiple types of Networks for example a LAN or a Local Area Network is used for connecting devices inside your home. a WAN or Wide Area Network is a group of LANs that are connected to each other. This can be represented as cell-phone towers. Another Network is localhost services
An IP address is a unique identifier for a device on a network. There are two types of IP addresses, Public and Private. A Public IP address is the IP address that your ISP (Internet Service Provider) gives you to connect to the internet. A Private IP address is the IP address that your router gives to each device on your LAN. An example of a Private IP address is 192.168.1.123 (this is a common private IP address for home networks). There are 2 types of Public IP addresses, IPv4 and IPv6. IPv4 addresses are 32-bit addresses that are represented in decimal format (e.g. 203.0.113.10) IPv6 addresses are 128-bit addresses that are represented in hexadecimal format (e.g. 2345:0425:2CA1:0000:0000:0567:5673:23b5).
A port is a number that is used to identify a specific process or service on a device. There are 65535 ports available for use, but the most common ports are: Port 80 - HTTP (Web traffic) Port 443 - HTTPS (Secure web traffic) Port 21 - FTP (File Transfer Protocol) Port 22 - SSH (Secure Shell) Port 25 - SMTP (Email) Ports are used to direct traffic to the correct process or service on a device. For example, when you type in a web address in your browser, your computer will connect to the IP address of the website on port 80 (or port 443 for secure websites). This tells the web server to send the web page to your browser. This can be useful for computers that are running multiple services. For example, a web server may be running a web server on port 443 and an SSH server on port 22. When a user connects to the web server on port 80, the web server will send the web page to the user's browser. When a user connects to the SSH server on port 22, the SSH server will allow the user to securely log in to the computer.
A Local Area network is the network that connects all the devices in your home together. LANs are managed by a router which connects to the internet with a modem. If you experience a internet shortage you may notice that a LAN network still works. This is because LAN networks don't depend on the Internet.
A Wide Area Network is a group of LANs that are connected to each other. An example of a WAN is the internet, which is a group of LANs that are connected to each other through ISPs (Internet Service Providers). Another example of a WAN is a cellular network, which is a group of cell towers that are connected to each other. WANs are managed by ISPs and cellular providers.
DNS stands for Domain Name System, is responsible for translating domain names (like techbinder.org) into Public IP addresses. When you type in a web address in your browser, your computer will send a request to a DNS server to get the IP address of the website. The DNS server will then return the IP address of the website to your router that caches it then it goes to your computer, which will then connect to the website using that IP address. This is why you can type in a web address instead of an IP address to access a website. DNS servers are managed by ISPs and other organizations. There are also public DNS servers that anyone can use, such as Google's Public DNS, Cloudflare's DNS, and OpenDNS. Read more about DNS on our DNS page.
Network Protocols determine the way commputers communicate wheather its a secure Hypertext Protocol (HTTPS), a "TCP" connection or even just a Secure Shell Connection (SSH). When you type in a url you might notice that before the Adress you have to put "HTTP://" or "HTTPS://" (Modern browser handle this automatically) These two protocols are for web-browsing.
HTTP or Hypertext Transfer Protocol is the standard Protocol for browsing the web and getting files from the internet.
HTTPS or Hypertext Transfer Protocol SSL is a more modern Protocol for browsing the web, infact most browsers will say "insecure " for a website still using HTTP. HTTPS works by encrypting the data between the client and server and it makes Man in the Middle attacks WAY harder.
SSH Protocol or the Secure Shell Protocol is the protocol that SSH uses to stay secure.
FTP or File Transfer Protocol is an older Protocol for file servers. (These days people just use https for that) This Protocol is mainly for for servers that want the user to download a file (eg: PDF file).
TCP is quite literally the BASE of the internet infact it is also known as IP Protocol, TCP is the network protocol responsible for IP addresses, because TCP is a lower level than other Protocols it can't compare to them.
UDP is base level like TCP but is very diffrent. It dosen't make sure packets are transfered in order, It dosen't use a connection therefore it dosen't use a handshake. This Protocol is not worse but it is better used for other things like Streaming, VoIP (Voice over IP), DNS, and DHCP and even Streaming.
SMTP or Simple Mail Transfer Protocol is the protocol used for sending emails. It is responsible for sending emails from a client to a server and from a server to another server.