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Previous episode IP addresses: why the internet cannot use a website's name

What happens when you type a web address and press Enter

DNS: how your phone finds the IP address of a website it never visited

Your phone has never visited a website. You press Enter, and a moment later your phone knows the IP address of its server. No single list holds every name on the internet. So who told your phone?

  1. 1 Your phone does not search at all. It sends one short question to a helper called a resolver, whose IP address the network gave it when you joined.a resolveren.wikipedia.org = ?Leave itto me!

    Your phone does not search at all. It sends one short question to a helper called a resolver, whose IP address the network gave it when you joined.

  2. 2 The resolver has no list of every name either. The internet had one once, a single file every computer copied, until the network grew too big for it. So the resolver asks around.the resolverNo list of everyname here!HOSTS.TXTonce, one fileheld every name

    The resolver has no list of every name either. The internet had one once, a single file every computer copied, until the network grew too big for it. So the resolver asks around.

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Next episode Routers: how a packet crosses the internet with no map of the whole road

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