What happens when you type https://www.google.com in your browser and press Enter
You may not necessarily type Google's address on your browser every time but, have you ever wondered what happens when you type in https://www.google.com and press Enter?
It works like magic. Your browser loads the Google home page allowing you access to the internet. There is more that goes on behind the scenes that you will not notice. Like a chef cooking a tasty meal, he/she uses several ingredients to make that sweet mouth watering meal you enjoy. Today let us look at these ingredients when it comes to the web.
Some of these terms that make the magic include:
What is a DNS request? Before we even get there, what is a DNS? DNS is short for Domain Name System. DNS is like the internet's phonebook, mapping domain names to their corresponding IP addresses, which are necessary for locating and connecting to websites and other internet resources. It is hard for humans to remember IP addresses. When you type in www.google.com, you initiate a DNS request to translate the human-readable domain name into an IP address.
TCP/IP. This may be familiar or not. It is a protocol, which in simple terms it means a set of rules. In full, Transport Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. The TCP/IP model defines how devices should transmit data between each other and enables communication over networks and large distances. When accessing Google, these set of rules determine how you are able to receive the page whenever you initiate a DNS request(remember DNS from before?).
A Firewall. Whenever you see this, just know it involves security. Think of a house, and when you requested for Google, you do not want uninvited guests to be allowed in alongside Google to your computer. So, A Firewall is a network security device that monitors and filters incoming and outgoing network traffic based on a previously established security policies. A firewall is meant to help you keep the bad guys out from sniffing into your information whenever you access a network. Nowadays, a firewall is a security standard practice.
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Now that you have a firewall. You are secure, still we could implement even stricter rules to ensure that you protected whenever you access the internet over a network. Let's discuss HTTPS/SSL. This is the padlock you see on your browser indicating that the connection is secure. SSL stands for Secure Socket Shell and HTTPS, is an acronym for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure. SSL secures communications by using what’s known as an asymmetric public key infrastructure. This type of security system uses two different keys to encrypt communications between two parties:
Now you know what the lock on your browser means. We still have a couple more technologies to describe. Can you now see that a lot is happening behind the scenes?
Load balancers, web servers, application servers and a database work in the backend to serve you with information that you request. A load balancer ensures that traffic is distributed evenly among servers. Modern services have tons of users. To be able to serve all their requests you need more than one server. The work of a load balancer is to help assign requests to these particular servers. If you want to read more about load balancers, look at this article here.
A web and application server work hand in hand with the database to provide information to the user. The main difference between an application server and a web server is that Web servers deliver static content, like HTML pages, images, videos, and files while Application servers deliver dynamic content, like real-time updates, personalized information, and customer support.A simple request such as logging in, means that the Web Server will serve the web page in this instance, Google. And the application server will use an algorithm to check if the current user attempting to log in exists in the database.
There is a lot that goes to serve you the page you request on the internet. All these happens so quickly that you will not be able to realise it when it does. Now that you have this information, you can appreciate the hard work that goes behind the scenes to make you enjoy your favourite shows online, social media pages etc.