What is the difference when web address is?

Question

What is the difference when web address is http://www.abc.com & http://abc.com.
Please only serious answers

Is there a difference in site security.Many web sites don't use www.That's my question

There is a website that i am trying to open .I don't know whats wrong at my end the file is opening with http://www. at other places but in my sytem it open only when i remove www from the address

Answer 1

There is a difference actually. Not all web sites have wild cards to them. There are sites that will not work with out their www. I will look for some examples.
It's just a matter of having sub domains for that to work properly.
It has nothing to do with security, other than a specific IP being bound to a site without the www where it could be speciffically a secure site as opposed to the same URL without the www that could be bound to a non-secure site. In other words, its up to those that set those pages up what they do with their stuff.

EDIT: I did look for sites that do not work without their www. and while it may be a lost cause since just about any website should have wild cards I did find some sites. Problem is that those links are pretty awful, and there is no way I will add those links here. I am not looking forward to getting banned.

EDIT 2: Here we go http://ci.missoula.mt.us/ as opposed to http://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/ Notice they are the same aside from the www.

Answer 2

Okay gang. It's not that www that makes it a link. It's the http://. And yes, there is a difference. www is a public forum in most cases. When there is the absence of www, it's because the site is not opened to the "world wide web", as in a company's site for internal use, which requires a password to enter.

Answer 3

Really not much of a difference. All my sites can be accessed through either one. The only difference is when you type www the browser sends query to world wide web and when the page is found downloads it to your computer and when you don't use www it simply hits your domain server and then pointed to the server where the website is hosted.

Answer 4

SECURITY ---- the security of the site is reflected through the word 'http' (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) -- correct me if i am wrong...

well, if ur http is followed by 's' (https) then it is a secured site for general end users(problem still exists if ur an expert hacker).. generally if the site is a secured site then ur address block goes yellow in colour..

As for www (world wide web) thing .. it doesn't matter..most of the answers given above are better than the best.. only thing is.. it will become something to care about when internet or the so called WORLD WIDE WEB goes to next level.. possible in a decade or two... till then hakuna matata(no worries)

Answer 5

People leave out the www because most modern browsers automatically default to http://www.

Answer 6

A layman's answer: not much. There once was a real reason to use the www, but it's not absolutely necessary these days.

If you're going to a site like http://live.abc.com, there's no www in it.

Answer 7

there is no difference when a web page is designed they also use words to find the site so it is just a variable of the site they are all the same.

Answer 8

They both go to the same web page. notice how http://www.abc.com is blue and underlined, it becomes an actually link to that page. while the other doesnt

Answer 9

no difference per se. if abc.com dont work then try www.abc.com