What happens when you type https://www.google.com in your browser and press Enter

What happens when you type https://www.google.com in your browser and press Enter

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When you type https://www.google.com in your browser and press Enter, a series of events take place behind the scenes to deliver the Google homepage to your computer. This process involves a number of different technologies, including:

  • Domain Name System (DNS): The DNS is a distributed naming system that translates domain names (like google.com) into IP addresses (like 142.250.184.10). When you type a domain name into your browser, the browser first needs to look up the corresponding IP address. This is done by sending a DNS query to a DNS server. The DNS server will then return the IP address of the domain name, which the browser can then use to connect to the web server hosting the website.

  • Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP): TCP/IP is a suite of protocols that governs communication over the internet. TCP is responsible for establishing and managing reliable connections between two devices, while IP is responsible for routing packets of data between devices. When the browser has obtained the IP address of the web server hosting google.com, it will use TCP/IP to establish a connection with the server.

  • Firewall: A firewall is a network security device that monitors and controls incoming and outgoing network traffic. Many firewalls are configured to block certain types of traffic, such as traffic from known malicious IP addresses. When the browser attempts to connect to the web server hosting google.com, the traffic will need to pass through the firewall. If the firewall is configured to block traffic to google.com, the connection will be blocked and you will not be able to access the website.

  • HTTPS/SSL: HTTPS is a secure version of the HTTP protocol that uses Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption to protect the data being transmitted between the browser and the web server. When you type https://www.google.com in your browser, you are telling the browser to use HTTPS to connect to the web server. This will ensure that the data you transmit to and receive from the web server is encrypted and cannot be intercepted by third parties.

  • Load balancer: A load balancer is a device that distributes traffic across multiple web servers. This is done to improve performance and reliability. When the browser connects to the web server hosting google.com, the load balancer will distribute the traffic across the multiple web servers hosting the Google homepage.

  • Web server: A web server is a software application that stores and delivers web pages to users. When the load balancer distributes traffic to a web server, the web server will retrieve the Google homepage from storage and send it to the browser.

  • Application server: An application server is a software application that hosts and executes web applications. In the case of google.com, the application server will host and execute the Google search engine. When the web server sends the Google homepage to the browser, the browser will then interact with the application server to perform searches and display the results.

  • Database: A database is a collection of organized data. The Google search engine uses a database to store the index of the web pages that it has crawled. When the application server receives a search query from the browser, it will query the database to find the most relevant results.

Once the application server has found the most relevant results for the search query, it will send the results back to the browser. The browser will then display the results to the user.

The entire process of delivering the Google homepage to your computer typically takes less than a second. This is because the various technologies involved have been optimized for performance.