According to a study conducted by IDC, around 41.76 billion devices were connected to the internet worldwide. To give you an idea of how impressive this is, the world population is around 8 billion people; there are five times more connected gadgets than individuals!

It's no wonder that the Internet is one of humanity's greatest inventions: it has drastically changed the way we communicate, work, and live our lives day after day. With a smartphone in your hands, you have access to virtually all of the knowledge acquired by human beings.

Even though you've been using it for a long time, have you ever stopped to think about its origins? When was the internet born? Who developed it until it became what it is today? These and many other questions will be answered throughout the text. Don't miss it!

The origins of the internet (1960 – 1980)

In the late 1960s, when computers were still huge, extremely heavy and slow devices, some researchers were already studying the possibility of transporting data between different machines over long distances.

Military and academic computers were already experimenting with networks to exchange information and create more agile collaboration on projects. The United States Department of Defense (DoD) launched ARPANET – a network of interconnected computers that connected them to four other North American universities.

At that time, the TCP/IP protocol was used – which still exists today. It is a set of protocols that allows communication between several devices connected to the same network.

ARPANET was a huge success, and over the years it expanded its reach to other educational institutions. In 1971, Leonard Kleinrock sent the first email ever, which was addressed to Douglas Engelbart of the Stanford Research Institute. Unfortunately, the “Login” message was not sent in its entirety due to an error: only “Lo” was sent to Engelbart.

Previously, only direct messages between devices were possible; sending emails would make communication increasingly robust and effective between parties. It is important to highlight this great achievement, as it is still part of usage habits around the world today.

Tim Berners-Lee, one of the “fathers of the internet”, posted the first photo on the web. It was in homage to a satirical band known as Les Horrible Cernettes.

Development (1980 – 1990)

In the 1980s, the Internet began to be developed for commercial purposes. From then on, it was no longer something exclusive to government or educational institutions. Thanks to this phase, businesses of all types were able to expand their influence through the network.

It was in 1983 that DoD shut down the ARPANET's NCP protocol, replacing it with TCP/IP. This way, the network could connect with others globally.

It was thanks to these important changes that other network protocols were created, such as FTP (File Transfer Protocol). Through it, it was possible to share files of various sizes between different devices connected to the internet. Although it is still used today, the FTP protocol is somewhat outdated; its evolution, known as SFTP, is better suited for the task.

Furthermore, it was in the 1980s that Telnet was created: through it, remote connection to other computers became possible.

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Popularization of the Internet (1990 – 2000)

This is the third phase of the world wide web, and one of the most important: access providers began to offer the service to the general public. Most connections were made via a modem connected directly to the telephone line.

Users born in the 1980s certainly remember the characteristic (and unforgettable) sound of modems as they connected to the network. It was a noise that was often deafening, and could disturb people nearby who were light sleepers. But it was the best there was at the time.

The Mosaic browser was released in 1993, and it helped many people surf the internet more efficiently and comfortably. Other browsers, such as Internet Explorer and Netscape, soon followed. Since then, competition between large companies has only increased.

As expected, several online companies began to appear: eBay, Amazon and Yahoo are just a few examples of true “dinosaurs” of the internet, as they thrive and exist to this day.

The Internet as We Know It (2000 – Present)

Broadband connections began to appear in the late 1990s, but they were not yet very common. However, it was in the 2000s that cable and fiber optic connections began to become popular, becoming the standard in practically all scenarios.

Thanks to increasingly faster and more reliable connections, companies have developed other digital solutions, such as the evolution of social networks. Yes, evolution and not creation, as the first social network was launched in 1995 by Randy Conrad: Classmates.

In addition, blogging and streaming platforms began to appear in droves, each with its own specific features. On February 14, 2005, YouTube was registered by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. Today, the platform receives billions of daily hits and hundreds of millions of pieces of content are available to users around the world.

In 2004, Facebook was launched, and after almost 20 years of existence, it continues to be one of the largest social networks in the world.

It is impossible to talk about the evolution of the Internet without mentioning the era of mobile devices: despite not being a pioneer in the field, Apple created the first iPhone in 2007. Thanks to the enormous commercial success of the device, several other brands entered the fight for a share of the market and, since then, smartphones have been as common as breathing.

Evolution never stops

Even the most basic smartphones are much more powerful than the expensive and sophisticated machines of the 1990s and 2000s. This is because the popularization of the Internet has taken on a simply impressive form. After all, there are more smartphones than human inhabitants on Earth.

Increasingly faster, safer and more reliable, the internet and all its services are constantly evolving, and you are an important part of this whole story. The reason is simple: everything is still very “new” and the world wide web is still far from having demonstrated its full potential.