Advantages of Internet

Following are the main advantages of Internet:

• Collection of information
• Free and Cheap
• E-Commerce
• Communication
• Entertainment and Games
• Research
• News
• Availability

Collection of Information:
One feature of internet is the collection of web sites, which contain information in the form of text and pictures. These websites provide a wide range of information on every topic of the world. When information is added to a website, it is immediately available for browsing by millions of Internet users. The World Wide Web is an ideal medium of information distribution because it takes away the time associated with publishing content and actually making it available to users.

Free and Cheap:
The information available on the Internet is usually free or costs very little. We can download different software like application programs, anti virus, different utility software free of cost. Content published on the World Wide Web is immediately available to a global audience of users, which makes it a very effective medium to publish information.

E-Commerce:
Internet has opened new doors for businesses, which is widely termed as E-Commerce or Electronic Commerce. Through Electronic Commerce business can introduce themselves to larger audience of the world through web sites and advertising. We can also do online trading of different commodities or shares through internet.

Communication:
Internet has revolutionized the way we communicate. It has been become very cheap and easy to communicate through it, Internet offers different facilities like E-mail, Video conferencing, Chatting etc for communication.

Entertainment and Games:
Internet has opened new arena for entertainment e.g. we can now see online movies, enjoy music, play games with different people in any part of the world. It covers different events, festivals and shows all over the world that we can enjoy simple on our computer scree.

Research:
Internet has enhanced the efforts that have been put in the research by allowing people to share their research with other people in different parts of the world.

News:
On Internet there are different news groups and websites from where we can get the latest news about the events happening in the world.

Availability:
The information on the internet is available 24 hours a day.

Services of internet

The Internet Provides a number of services such as:

• World Wide Web (WWW)
• Electronic Mail (E-mail)
• Newsgroup
• Chatting
• FTP
• Electronic Commerce (E-Commerce)

World Wide Web (WWW):
The World Wide Web is the fastest growing part of the internet, as well as the most exciting. This is a graphical environment that allows the text and pictures to be displayed on your screen via software called Web Browser.

Electronic Mail (E-Mail:
This service is available over the internet enabling you to send and receive messages on global basis. People use email for anything for which they might use paper mail, faxes, special delivery of documents, or the telephone. You can communicate globally for the cost of local phone call. The reason for this is that you connect to the Internet via your ISP by dialing a local diaplup number.

News Groups:
News groups are included in the internet. They can be accessed with the help of you Internet Browser and enable you to take part in discussion of internet with like-minded people from around the world.

Chatting:
People are talking to other people all over the world. They enter chat rooms with several other people or special someone. They send messages to each other. They are using different services for chatting like MSN Messenger, AOL America Online, ICQ, MIRC, and Yahoo Messenger and many others.

FTP:
FTP ( File Transfer Protocol ) is a simple way to transfer files to and from the internet. Often this is done using your browser. You may obtain FTP programs; download books, pictures, movies, articles and software.

Electronic Commerce (E-Commerce):
This is a modern way for buying and selling goods over the internet in secure manner. It seems that everybody is doing it. Credit cards are used for payment. Many services are available for handling credit cards all over the internet with security.