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What do people do on the Internet?

Probably the most frequent use is e-mail. After that are file transfer (moving data from one computer to another) and remote login (logging into a computer that is running somewhere else on the Internet). In terms of traffic volume, as of December 1994 about 32% of total traffic was file transfer, 16% was World Wide Web (WWW), 11% was netnews, 6% was email, 4% was gopher, and the rest was for other uses. (Figures taken from Merit NIC's port usage statistics.) People can search databases (including the catalogs of the Library of Congress and scores of university research libraries), download data and software, and ask (or answer) questions in discussion groups on numerous topics (including economics research).



Jeffrey K. MacKie-Mason
Tue Jul 11 10:21:32 EDT 1995