What’s the deal with “WWW”?

It's fairly common knowledge that WWW stands for World Wide Web. The real question is- where did it originate from and is it still necessary to use it?

Before the big Internet boom, there were a number of different ways to transmit information from Internet sites, and one of the youngest of them was the World Wide Web, at the time a series of links to text documents that spread out much like a spider’s web. Back then you would need to specify that you were looking for information via the Web, and the www was required. Once the first graphical Web browser (NCSA Mosaic) appeared in 1993, the Web boomed and became the most common platform for the Internet.

Technically, most web addresses still use www, so for example to get to the Geek Squad home page you can use www.geeksquad.com. Most browsers like Internet Explorer, Safari, and Firefox will automatically add the “www” if you only type in the geeksquad.com name, so it is not necessary to type.