Visualization of the various routes through a portion of the Internet
In the general sense, an internet (with a lowercase "i", a shortened form of the original inter-network) is a computer network that connects several networks. As a proper noun, the Internet is the publicly available internationally interconnected system of computers (plus the information and services they provide to their users) that uses the TCP/IP suite of packet switching communications protocols. Thus, the largest internet is called simply "the" Internet. The art of connecting networks in this way is called internetworking.
Internet friendships are friendships between people who have met online, and in some cases know each other only via the Internet. Like Internet romance, it has been widely debated and often criticized.
