Who invented the World Wide Web?
Quick answer
British computer scientist Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web while working at CERN, the physics laboratory near Geneva. He proposed it in 1989, and by the end of 1990 he had built the first web browser and editor (called WorldWideWeb), the first web server and the first website. Berners-Lee is now 71.
How the web was born
- March 1989Berners-Lee writes a proposal, “Information Management: A Proposal,” which his boss marks “Vague but exciting”
- 1990He creates HTML, HTTP and URLs, and builds the first browser-editor, WorldWideWeb, on a NeXT computer
- August 1991The first website, info.cern.ch, explaining the project, becomes publicly available
- 1993CERN puts the web’s software in the public domain, free for anyone to use
- 1994Berners-Lee founds the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to develop web standards
The three building blocks
| Invention | What it does |
|---|---|
| HTML | The language for writing web pages |
| HTTP | The rules for sending pages between computers |
| URL | The address system that finds each page |
The web vs the internet
They’re not the same:
| Internet | World Wide Web | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A global network of connected computers | A system of linked pages that runs on the internet |
| Began | 1960s–1980s (ARPANET, TCP/IP) | 1989–1991 |
| Examples of use | Email, online games, video calls | Websites viewed in a browser |
Why he didn’t patent it
Berners-Lee and CERN chose not to charge royalties, so anyone could build on the web. This openness is a big reason it spread so fast.
Honors
He was knighted in 2004 and won the Turing Award in 2016, computing’s top prize. He continues to campaign for an open web and greater control over personal data.
Early browsers led to commercial ones like Netscape Navigator. Every website uses an address and secure connection: read what HTTPS adds to HTTP.
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