As we’ve seen, the internet is a network that links computer devices worldwide, enabling people to share information with one another despite vast distances. But how is information sent from one device to another?

One way of understanding this process is to look at the client-server model. In this model, the client refers to the user’s device or program that is making a request for data. A client can be a browser or application running on a user’s laptop, smartphone, or tablet.

The server is the device or program in that network that waits for incoming requests and sends back data. This might be an in-house server, a rented server at a data center, or cloud server. At Codecademy, we have servers that store lesson data and our servers are sending this lesson data to your client device.