Internet technologies
This WhatIs.com glossary contains terms related to Internet technologies, including definitions about port numbers, standards and protocols and words and phrases about how the Internet works.EXT - INT
- Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) - The Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) is a protocol for wireless networks that expands on authentication methods used by the Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP), a protocol often used when connecting a computer to the Internet.
- Extensible Name Service (XNS) - Extensible Name Service (XNS) is an open Extensible Markup Language (XML)-based protocol that specifies a way to establish and manage a universal addressing system.
- extranet - An extranet is a private network that uses Internet technology and the public telecommunication system to securely share part of a business's information or operations with suppliers, vendors, partners, customers, or other businesses.
- Facebook - Facebook is a popular free social networking website that allows registered users to create profiles, upload photos and video, send messages and keep in touch with friends, family and colleagues.
- Facebook Live - Facebook Live is a feature for live broadcast of user videos from the Facebook mobile app.
- Facebook M - Facebook M is the social media company’s personal digital assistant for the Messenger mobile app.
- Facebook Marketplace - Facebook Marketplace is classified-ad section of the social network that specializes in helping individuals and businesses sell items locally.
- Facebook Portal - Facebook Portal is the social media network company's brand of smart displays.
- Facebook Workplace - Facebook Workplace is the social networking company’s enterprise-level collaboration tool.
- FaceTime - FaceTime is an Apple video telephony application that allows users to make a video call over the internet with a forward-facing camera on iOS and macOS devices.
- FAQ (frequently-asked questions) - The FAQ (pronounced FAK) or list of "frequently-asked questions" (and answers) has become a feature of the Internet.
- fast array of wimpy nodes (FAWN) - FAWN (fast array of wimpy nodes) is a low-power server architecture for intensive input/output (IO) tasks.
- fast flux DNS - Fast flux DNS is a technique that a cybercriminal can use to prevent identification of his key host server's IP address.
- fast retransmit and recovery (FRR) - In TCP/IP, fast retransmit and recovery (FRR) is a congestion control algorithm that makes it possible to quickly recover lost data packets.
- Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP or FC/IP) - Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP or FC/IP, also known as Fibre Channel tunneling or storage tunneling) is an Internet Protocol (IP)-based storage networking technology developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
- file transfer - File transfer is the movement of one or more files from one location to another.
- finger - Finger is a program that tells you the name associated with an e-mail address.
- Firefox - Firefox is a Web browser that is smaller, faster, and in some ways more secure than the Netscape browser from which much of its code was derived.
- firehose effect - A firehose effect occurs in a network when the source (transmitting) computer or terminal sends data too fast for a destination (receiving) computer or terminal to deal with it.
- Flash cookie - Flash cookies, also known as local shared objects (LSO), are text files stored on a user’s hard drive when a browsers requests content that's supported by Adobe Flash.
- foreign network - In the Mobile Internet Protocol (Mobile IP), a foreign network is any network other than the home network to which a mobile device may be connected.
- Forward DNS lookup - Forward DNS lookup is using an Internet domain name to find an IP address.
- fractional T1 - A fractional T1 or T3 line is a T1 or T3 digital phone line in the North American T-carrier system that is leased to a customer at a fraction of its data-carrying capacity and at a correspondingly lower cost.
- frames (web site) - In creating a Web site, frames is the use of multiple, independently controllable sections on a Web presentation.
- frictionless checkout - Frictionless checkout is a collection of technologies and processes used to make online and retail shopping faster and easier for consumers.
- frictionless commerce - Frictionless commerce is a method of using data from devices, apps and websites to integrate buying opportunities as simply and seamlessly as possible into consumers’ everyday activities and natural environments.
- FSP (full-service provider) - On the Internet, an FSP (full-service provider) is an application service provider (ASP) that offers a wide range of Web-based information technology services to other companies - including the planning and creation of a Web presence, providing needed software applications, and hosting and maintaining the Web site.
- FTP (File Transfer Protocol) - File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a client-server standard used to transfer files between computers over the Internet using control and data channels.
- fully qualified domain name (FQDN) - A fully-qualified domain name (FQDN) is that portion of an Internet Uniform Resource Locator (URL) that fully identifies the server program that an Internet request is addressed to.
- fuzzy search - A fuzzy search is a process that locates Web pages that are likely to be relevant to a search argument even when the argument does not exactly correspond to the desired information.
- G.lite - For more information, see Digital Subscriber Line.
- gamification - Gamification is the application of game theory concepts and techniques to non-game activities.
- gateway - A gateway is a network node used in telecommunications that connects two networks with different transmission protocols together.
- GeoRSS - GeoRSS is a method of describing and pinpointing the physical locations of Internet content.
- giant - In networks, a giant is a packet, frame, cell, or other transmission unit that is too large.
- gigapop (gigabit point-of-presence) - Gigapop is short for gigabit point-of-presence, an access point to Internet2, the network collaboration between universities and partners in industry and government to develop advanced Internet technologies and applications such as telemedicine and digital libraries.
- global information infrastructure (GII) - The global information infrastructure (GII) is the developing communications framework intended to eventually connect all telecommunications and computer networks world-wide.
- Gmail - Gmail (pronounced Gee-mail) is a free Web-based e-mail service that provides users with a gigabyte of storage for messages and provides the ability to search for specific messages.
- GMPLS (Generalized Multiprotocol Label Switching or Multiprotocol Lambda Switching) - GMPLS (Generalized Multiprotocol Label Switching), also known as Multiprotocol Lambda Switching, is a technology that provides enhancements to Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) to support network switching for time, wavelength, and space switching as well as for packet switching.
- goat - In biometric verification, a goat is a system end-user who is refused access to the system because their biometric data pattern is outside the range recognized by the system.
- Google (the company) - Google is a multinational, publicly-traded organization built around the company's hugely popular search engine.
- Google bomb - A Google bomb is an attempt to bias a search result on Google by increasing a Web page's PageRank.
- Google Chrome browser - Google Chrome browser is an open source program for accessing the World Wide Web and running Web-based applications.
- Google Chrome OS - Google Chrome OS is an open source lightweight operating system (OS).
- Google Hangouts - Google Hangouts is a unified communications service that allows members to initiate and participate in text, voice or video chats, either one-on-one or in a group.
- Google Street View - Google Street View is a feature of Google Maps that enables users to view and navigate through 360 degree horizontal and 290 degree vertical panoramic street level images of various cities around the world.
- Google Trends - Google Trends is a free service provided by Google that displays how often specific keywords, subjects and phrases have been searched for on Google over a period of time.
- Google Voice - Google Voice allows registered members to link their mobile phones, IP telephony applications and land line phones to a single Google Voice phone number.
- Google Wallet - Google Wallet is a mobile payment system developed by Google that allows smartphone users to store debit and credit card information for online and in-store purchases.
- Googlebot - Googlebot is the web crawling software search bot (also known as a spider or webcrawler) that gathers the web page information used to supply Google search engine results pages (SERP).
- Gopher - From about 1992 through 1996, Gopher was an Internet application in which hierarchically-organized text files could be brought from servers all over the world to a viewer on your computer.
- gov - gov is one of the top-level domain names that can be used when choosing a domain name.
- green route - A green route is one of three categories of Internet route states defined by the Policy Analysis of Internet Routing (PAIR) project, an initiative dedicated to the development of tools that ISPs (Internet service providers), network operators, and end users can use to troubleshoot Internet routing and policy problems.
- grid computing - Grid computing uses small, distributed resources from servers and PCs to solve big problems.
- gTLD (generic top-level domain name) - A gTLD (generic top-level domain name) is the top-level domain name of an Internet address that identifies it generically as associated with some domain class, such as .
- Gyricon - Gyricon is a type of electronic paper (sometimes called e-paper) developed at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).
- H.245 - H.245 is a protocol for the transmission of call management and control signals in packet-based networks using H.
- HailStorm - Part of Microsoft's .
- hairpinning - In general telecommunication, hairpinning is returning a message from an origin endpoint back in the direction it came from as a way to get it to its destination endpoint.
- hardware VPN - A hardware VPN is a virtual private network ( VPN) based on a single, stand-alone device.
- HELLO packet - In the Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) communications protocol - which enables network routers to share information with each other, a HELLO packet is a special packet (message) that is sent out periodically from a router to establish and confirm network adjacency relationships.
- Hierarchical Mobile IPv6 (HMIPv6) - Hierarchical Mobile IPv6 (HMIPv6) is the proposed enhancement of Mobile Internet Protocol versions 6 (MIPv6) that is designed to reduce the amount of signaling required and to improve handoffspeed for mobile connections.
- high-speed dialup - High-speed dialup, sometimes advertised as broadband dialup, is an Internet service provider (ISP) feature that speeds up data transfer by using a special server, called an acceleration server, to act as a bridge between the user's dialup connection and a Web page.
- HipChat - Atlassian HipChat allows employees to collaborate, work as teams and manage goals, all in real time, whether they work in the same office building or are located around the world.
- history - In a Web browser, the history is a detailed list of Web sites the computer has visited which remains in a computer's memory for a pre-determined number of days.
- hit - A hit is a single file request in the access log of a Web server.
- home page - For a Web user, the home page is the first Web page that is displayed after starting a Web browser like Netscape's Navigator or Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
- hop off - Hop off is a term used in telecommunications that refers to a point at which a signal or call leaves a network and moves to another network.
- hop on - In telecommunications, hop on refers to a point at which a signal or call enters a network from another network.
- host (in computing) - A host (also known as "network host") is a computer or other device that communicates with other hosts on a network.
- hosting (Web site hosting, Web hosting, and Webhosting) - Hosting (also known as Web site hosting, Web hosting, and Webhosting) is the business of housing, serving, and maintaining files for one or more Web sites.
- Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP) - Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP) is a routing protocol that allows host computers on the Internet to use multiple routers that act as a single virtual router, maintaining connectivity even if the first hop router fails, because other routers are on "hot standby" - ready to go.
- HTML 4.0 - HTML 4.0 was the final version of the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) before the Extensible Markup Language (XHTML) and remains the set of markup on which most large Web sites today are based.
- HTML 5 desktop client - An HTML5 desktop client is a type of remote desktop client that provides an end user with access to a desktop or application through a web browser.
- HTML validator - An HTML validator is a quality assurance program used to check Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) markup elements for syntax errors.
- HTML5 - HTML 5 is a revision of the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), the standard programming language for describing the contents and appearance of Web pages.
- HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) - HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is the set of rules for transferring files -- such as text, images, sound, video and other multimedia files -- over the web.
- HTTP 1.1 - HTTP 1.1 is the latest version of Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), the World Wide Web application protocol that runs on top of the Internet's TCP/IP suite of protocols.
- HTTPS (HTTP over SSL or HTTP Secure) - HTTPS (HTTP over SSL or HTTP Secure) is the use of Secure Socket Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS) as a sublayer under regular HTTP application layering.
- hybrid virus/worm - A hybrid virus/worm is malicious code that combines characteristics of both those types of malware, typically featuring the virus' ability to alter program code with the worm's ability to reside in live memory and to propagate without any action on the part of the user.
- hyper - As an adjective, hyper is slang for "keyed up" or "overwrought.
- hypertext - Hypertext is the organization of information units into connected associations that a user can choose to make.
- iBeacon - iBeacon is a small-scale network device that uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and acts as a transmitter to detect and track smartphones.
- IBM Roadrunner - Roadrunner is the fastest supercomputer in the world, twice as fast as Blue Gene and six times as fast as any of the other current supercomputers.
- ICP (Internet commerce provider) - An ICP (Internet commerce provider) is a company that sells software and services that enable a merchant with a Web site to build an online store on the merchant's own site or on the provider's site.
- IDoc (intermediate document) - IDoc (intermediate document) is a standard data structure used in SAP applications to transfer data to and from SAP system applications and external systems.
- IEEE 802 wireless standards - The IEEE 802 standard is a collection of networking standards that cover the physical and data-link layer specifications for technologies such as Ethernet and wireless.
- iFCP (Internet Fibre Channel Protocol) - iFCP (Internet Fibre Channel Protocol) is an emerging standard for extending Fibre Channel storage networks across the Internet.
- IFrame (Inline Frame) - The IFrame HTML element is often used to insert content from another source, such as an advertisement, into a Web page.
- IM worm - An IM worm is self-replicating malicious code that spreads in instant messaging networks.
- image content search - Image content search is the capacity for software to recognize objects in digital images and return a search engine results page (SERP) based on a user query.
- image recognition - Image recognition, in the context of machine vision, is the ability of software to identify objects, places, people, writing and actions in images.
- impression - In Web advertising, the term impression is sometimes used as a synonym for view, as in ad view.
- information signature - To fight terrorism, the Information Awareness Office (IAO) of the U.
- Instagram - Instagram is a free, online photo-sharing application and social network platform that was acquired by Facebook in 2012.
- instant messaging (IM) - Instant messaging, often shortened to IM or IM'ing, is the exchange of near real-time messages through a stand-alone application or embedded software.
- instant translation - Instant translation is the translation from one language to another of Web pages, e-mail, and online chat text by a computer program so that the translated results appear almost instantly.
- INSTEON protocol - INSTEON protocol is a communication language for home automation device control by Smartlabs.