Evolution of web: Web 1.0, Web 2.0 & Web 3.0

Web 1.0

This is the earliest version of web, often referred to as static web or read-only web. In this version there were only readable contents available in the form of text and images. It was only a one way broadcast of information by businesses. End-users could only search information and read it. It was not possible for end-user to interact with the information like post an update or a picture, update comments etc.

Web 1.0 had one publisher and multiple consumers of static data.

 E.g. Shopping experience in web 1.0 era. User sees advertisement about a product on the website. Visits the store for buying it as interaction is not possible through website to shop online.

Web 2.0

To solve the Web 1.0 limitations of one publisher and multiple consumers, static data another version of web came into existence. This version of web is referred to as participative social web. As the name refers, it is an interactive form of web where end-users can participate over web to collaborate and share information for free through various platforms such as blogging, podcasting, social media content etc.

 E.g. Shopping experience in web 2.0 era. User creates an account in shopping website, searches items of his choice. Adds the item to cart and checks out by opting out payment options.

The advantage of dynamic data, 2-way communication between publishers and consumers. But all this works at the cost of loosing privacy. Because when you are logged in to shopping website which has tie-ups with social media sites for generating traffic. As policy of website, you agree to terms and conditions while sign in which has a clause to share your personal data and information.

Web 3.0

This version of web is referred to as read write execute web. Web 3.0 will enable 2-way interaction of the user with the product, eliminating the requirement of a middleman. Users have the right to remove the ads if they don’t want to watch. If they see it, the browser distributes the rewards to users generated on the ad.

It will eliminate the monopoly of big social media sites upholding users data, where users have no right to remove the ads. If they wish to do so, they are charged money for blocking the ads. Data breach, one of the crucial problems in the existing web 2.0 generation, will be eliminated.

E.g., Shopping experience while maintaining privacy

Though, Web 3.0 has advantages which solves the problem of maintaining anonymity, eliminates the middle agent, gives the power of the internet in public hands and makes it decentralized, it has certain other challenges such as unethical and illegal acts, global warming at ground level, lack of effective tracing mechanism of source of broadcast due to anonymity.

WWW – World Wide Web

The World Wide Web (WWW) as we commonly know it as a Web, from where you are likely reading this. It is a system where we can access informative documents and other resources in various forms from the internet. Its used for browsing the news, chatting with friends, ordering food, booking a flight etc. We use it from our computers and phones. World wide web has definitely changed the way how information was shared prior to its existence, with the help of fax machines, letters, telephones.

What is World Wide Web ?

Well, the World Wide Web is a collection of websites stored on different web severs. A web server is a computer specifically designed to store and share the information with the use of web hosts. Each website is uniquely identified with its website address or a URL(Uniform Resource Locator). The World Wide Web is not the Internet, event though the terms are often used interchangeably. The Internet, in simple words, is the way how computers connect to each other in order to share information. Just like this world, no one owns the Web, it belongs to all of us. We might have to pay an Internet service provider to gain access, a hosting company to rent web space and to register a web address of our choice.

Who invented the World Wide Web ?

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, also known as Tim BL, a computer scientist invented the WWW in the year 1989.

What makes the Web so unique ?

Earlier to existence of the Web, most information was consumed form newspaper articles, books or any other physical document by reading it line by line, page by page, from beginning to the end. There was no ease of accessing relevant information in a short span of time. The Web accomplishes this arrangement of digital information access to the world with the use of hyperlinks. Hyperlinks are clickable links which divert the user to specific content of its interest, like this blog page has links on right side with a list of topic names, just the way we have index page to locate the title at specified page number and textbook.

Microservices

Microservices are based on architectural approach of plug and play. We can create a big software which consists of smaller independent services that communicate through a channel of APIs.

As each service is independent of another, its way easier to scale up without affecting other services. Services need not share the code with other services. Each service is meant to solve a specific problem. For eg. if we have a service for login, it will be focused on getting and authenticating user details like username, password. This separation helps in easily updating, deleting the service. The risk of failure of entire application is relatively less due to a change in a single service. This architecture also provides an ease of customizing application within shorter time span.

Caret browsing

Ever been in a situation where your computer mouse stopped working abruptly and there was a need to move around the web browser tabs using only the keyboard as that is the only option available till you get your mouse repaired or replace with a new one. That is when caret browsing comes as a quick fix.

What is caret browsing?

It is also called as caret navigation. Its a special feature of web browser which enables user to easily navigate and highlight selections with keyboard. Caret is the vertical text cursor “|”.

How do we navigate using caret?

In this mode, the cursor is often depicted with a blinking vertical line. We can navigate using the arrow keys. Selection of text is possible with combination of Shift key and arrow key. Ctrl key helps in moving word by word. Other keys like page up and page down are quite handy for navigation at top and bottom respectively in a page. Try out caret navigation on Google chrome by pressing F7.

IIFE : Immediately Invoked Function Expression

What is IIFE?

As the name says, IIFE, Immediately Invoked Function Expression is a function which is immediately invoked as soon as it is defined in javascript programming. It is a very popular way of handling javascript programs where the interpreter runs it only once.

Different syntax:

1. ( function( ){ //statements })( );
2. ( function( ){ //statements }( ));
3. ( ( )=>{ //statements })( );

It has two parts: One is the function enclosed within () group operator, helps in accessing variables within function and second part which directly creates the immediately invoked function expression () which the javascript engine interprets. This whole concept of design pattern is called as Self Executing Anonymous Function.

As the function name is not used, they are called as anonymous function.

When is IIFE important?

As IIFE is executed once it is defined and interpreted once by javascript engine.

It maintains encapsulation and avoids polluting of variables which are not required for global access.

The code which does not have reusability can also be a part of IIFE. Hence this function is also an anonymous function.

Blockchain

What is Blockchain?

Blockchain is a decentralized and distributed system with details of digital records of transactions. The digital based ledger records are often referred to as blocks. The blocks of individual records are linked together like a chain. Hence it is collectively referred to as a blockchain.

The blockchain was invented by Satoshi Nakamoto for public transaction of bitcoin cryptocurrency.

What does a Blockchain contain?

Blockchain contains information about data i.e. relevant information about transaction, hash which is a unique code for the block, previous blocks hash. The first block which does not have previous block’s hash is called Genesis block. This series of information inside a block helps in tracking the history and difficult to modify the blockchain records hence adds security.

How transactions are done in blockchain?

For a blockchain the decision of adding the transaction to the chain is done by consensus and not by a single administrator as incase of centralized system. The majority of computers connected in the network have to validate the transaction. Also data that is available on blockchain network cannot be deleted from all systems as everybody in the network holds copy of blockchain records.

Uses of blockchain?

In cryptocurrency like bitcoin blockchain technology is very useful. Bitcoin eliminates the need of middle layer of banks and helps in asset to asset transfer as it is without the conversion of currency values based on location.

In real estate, the use of blockchain eliminates the need of notary. The records of real estates buying and selling gets recorded in the blockchain.

In hospital management system blockchain is used to record patients relevant data for doctors to access.

The #Hashtag

What is hashtag ?

Hashtag! well most of us know any word that begins with the pound(#) sign is a hashtag. Technically speaking, hashtag is a metadata i.e. information about data that is being posted on a social media or microblogging platforms.

Why is there a crazy trend to use a hashtag ?

The microblogging platforms such as twitter limit the content length to 280 characters. So hashtag becomes a way of conveying the message using limited characters to the followers and audience, in general. The hashtag is a tagging that helps in referencing the content and acts as a keyword for content search and categorization of similar content. The hashtags can be informal combination of words to make it more catchy and make it viral and trending, that is the fun part of it 🙂

Companies and businesses have been using hashtags as a cool way of advertising and promoting their products and services. Most social media platforms such as instagram, twitter, facebook, linkedin, pinterest etc. provide hashtag support for posts and hashtag based search to catch attention of its audience and get views. So apart from searching for people, products, influencers, companies we can also search with keywords, phrases etc.

How hashtag came into existence ?

Hashtag was first proposed by Chris Messina in a tweet in the year 2007 on twitter platform. In the beginning, only twitter had the support for hashtag concept but gradually other social media platforms included hashtag looking at the emerging trend and usage by netizens.

Types of web cookies

This post in continuation to my earlier post which explains about Web cookie

There are types of web cookies namely

• Session cookie: They are created during a session of user, stored in a temporary memory. They do not have any expiration date and are deleted immediately as soon as the browser is closed. The other popular names of session cookie are non-persistent cookie, transient cookie, in-memory cookie.
• Persistent cookie: For this cookie, an expiration time is set. So, the cookie is deleted only at the expiration time and not deleted as soon as the browser is closed. They are used for maintaining session of the user. That is, once the user is logged into the website and if the user closes and reopens browser the cookie identifies if its a authorized user or not.
• First party cookie: This cookie is set by the website and the cookie information can be used for analytics of page views, number of logged in users etc.
• Third party cookie: Unlike first party cookie, this cookie is set by another website domain (not directly visited by user) whose plugins are used by the primary website.
• Secure cookie: This is a cookie with encrypted data which can be used over an encrypted HTTPS connection. They are useful in e-commerce and banking websites where the safety and security of transactions in the topmost priority.

Web cookie

You have been browsing the internet and chances are when you visit a website for the first time then for some of websites you may have come across a pop-up or a notification banner: “This website uses cookies” with buttons for accept and change settings. Sometimes you just say, Oh whatever that is! Let me just get into the website and press the Accept button to go about your way. So let us understand what is happening behind the scenes.

What is a web cookie?

Web cookie or browser cookie is a small piece of information which is send from website server to be stored in a user’s browser. The user may store it in its computer which is basically used to identify the computer. That is, maintain stateful information so the next time, user visits the website or on the next request it can send back, the cookie that can have some kind of information about the user that the server can make use of to make certain decisions. Other purposes could be for instance, track user’s browser activity or remember login details, track site’s user count etc.

Who invented it?

The term was coined by web browser programmer who invented cookie Lou Montulli in the year 1994 while building an e-commerce website.

Why do we see the cookie banner pop up?

The reason why we see the cookie banner popping up recently across most websites is because of legal concerns in Europe and some other countries, the GDPR(General Data Privacy Regulation) requires that the cookie banners be displayed on website to let the users know that cookies are being used by the website.

Where is a cookie useful?

Its used in session management to manage session of the user in ecommerce website. Its used for personalization like the settings that were set and saved by the user and as said earlier, also used for tracking to improve the user experience as they say it 😉

Digital footprint

What is digital footprint?

So, you are an active internet user. You have atleast one social media account and in some point of time have uploaded a photo, shared a video, have liked/commented on friend’s post. Also, the likes on a post,  private chat messages, the online shopping search of your favourite brand etc. Aren’t these the activities we, as individual’s tend to do to be connected and engaged or in search of something online? In simple terms, all this content builds up what is called as digital footprint.

That means, digital footprint also referred as digital shadow is a content (text or audio or video) with a set of traceable digital activities of an individual on the digital devices or any internet platform. That is, the stuff  what you leave behind when you use online services for online shopping, social networking etc.

Why should you be concerned about digital footprint?

Once you are logged into any website be it for online shopping or listening to a trending song, remember that web is secretly tracking all your actions allowing the targeted marketers to advertise exactly what products you have been browsing in you recent past. Also social media platforms often introduce new policies of usage that we may tend to accept just by clicking Accept/Ok button without actually reading the policies. User privacy is a concern.

All this data can be leaked to make a profit out of it for research in terms of marketing products and building it better for human convenience where a set of customers habits and user experience can be traced.

Can we avoid not being eavesdropped?

As suggested by one of my friend you may say as well, if privacy is a concern browse without login into websites, use browser’s incognito mode, clear browser history. That doesn’t solve the problem at base level as there is this loophole: every device has a unique IP address and uniquely the browsed content can be easily traced.