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What Is a URL?


A URL, or uniform resource locator, is the Internet address of a file. URLs are case sensitive. The most common syntax of a URL is:

protocol:// machine[: port]/ path/ filename.html

where:
protocol is the Internet protocol used to transmit the file. Examples of different protocols are shown below
machine is the domain name of the server where the file is stored (e.g. www.company.com)
:port is only required when a non-standard TCP port number is used

The NCD Mosaic Browser supports the following protocols in the browsers with encryption. The non-encrypted code does not have gopher and mailto:

Protocol Example
Hypertext Transfer Protocol http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/demoweb/url-primer.html
gopher gopher://gopher.tc.umn.edu/
File Transfer Protocol ftp://ftp.cica.indiana.edu/
Electronic mail address mailto:someone@foo.com (not a valid address)