other protocols

Section: Structure of the Internet
...Subsection: Protocols
... ...Subsubsection: other protocols

There are a number of other protocols that are used on the Internet. Many of them are used mainly by computer professionals for maintaining and testing connections (such as ping, which checks to see if a certain site is running). Others (such as gopher) were very popular once, but now have been supplanted by another protocol. The worldwide web has made a number of smaller protocols far less important to the average user, because you don't really have to know which protocol is being used.