The internet has transformed the world into a global village, everything is interconnected, and information is at our fingertips. We can interact with it from anywhere in the world. In addition, communication is borderless due to advanced social media platforms.
This has been achieved through constant improvements to the World Wide Web (Web 1.0) which was static in nature, to a more dynamic and user-generated content Web (Web 2.0).
Web 2.0 has geared tremendous transformations and growth across mainstream industries since its debut, but it relies on a centralized architecture.
This means a single or a few entities have control over the entire internet system, leading to bottlenecks like personalized advertising, data censorship, and user privacy violations.
As a result, the world is in pursuit to change the Web 2.0 internet’s framework into a decentralized architecture that will leverage blockchain technology instead of centralized servers. To provide a zero-censorship, secure, and private internet to users, dubbed, (Web 3.0).
The Web 3.0 craze is gaining traction around the globe, and blockchain-underpinned platforms have tapped into this space.
Let’s take a look at how the internet has evolved since its inception.
The Prototype
The first internet prototype was introduced in the 1900s and was dubbed the ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network). The ARPANET used the packet-switching technique to connect computer networks around the globe.
What is Web 1.0
Web 1.0 is the first version of the internet (World Wide Web) launched in the late 1980s. This form of the internet had minimal features such that it was read-only — users could not interact with it.
The pages were created using the Hypertext Markup language (HTML) and linked with hyperlinks. In addition, they were unchangeable. Users would only access information but could not create content.
What is Web 2.0
Web 2.0 represents a more advanced version of its predecessor. With additional improvements on Web 1.0 like the incorporation of a Graphical User interface (GUI) on webpages and the introduction of social media platforms, users could now efficiently interact with the internet. This drove an exponential growth of the internet, more websites were developed and a spree of users joined the growing internet ecosystem as well.
The extreme growth has spurred the emergence of Web 2.0-centric companies such as Google, Meta, and Amazon which are now perceived to have dominated the internet space. Internet users in Web 2.0 allege that such entities have brought centralization in the space.
What is Web 3.0
Web 3.0 is the upcoming version of the internet that is deemed to level the playing field for users by giving them complete control, security, and privacy of their data. This internet generation looks to swap centralized applications with blockchain-based decentralized apps to allow users to carry out transactions without a central entity or intermediary on a peer-to-peer network protocol.
Web 3.0 will also streamline data processing by introducing machine learning fuelled by Artificial Intelligence (AI) that will be in charge of processing user data to improve security.
It is the newest version of the internet that deploys decentralization to solve the issue of data breaches and insecurity with current central internet entities. It will be controlled and managed by users around the globe through a peer-to-peer network protocol bolstered by blockchain technology.
EDNS — creating a digital identity for the Web 3.0 world
EDNS is among the key players to have placed a bid to build this next generation of the internet-where users will have complete privacy, security, and control of their data.
The Web 3.0 dApp runs on the polygon blockchain providing decentralized domains that are coupled with amazing advantages, for Web 3.0 and Decentralized Finance (DeFi) protocols.
Currently, a website domain in Web 2.0 only acts as a unique identifier that tells your computer where the site is hosted.
ENDS domains offer more than that, they are human-readable as compared to the Web 2.0 website IP addresses that contain a series of numeric digits.
At EDNS, users can create fancy domain names with their identity, company names, or any characters they feel like. More so, the domains are unique like any other non-fungible token –enabling holders to list them on marketplaces.
Moreover, they replace crypto wallet addresses. Thus, domain holders do not need the long hexadecimal wallet phrase for transactions.
The company is also maximizing its bet on Web 3.0 with features that will allow users to host and create websites, and store NFTs plus We b3.0 sites in a decentralized storage infrastructure.
Final words
With platforms like EDNS driving this paradigm shift to transform the internet to be more user-dominated, we foresee the increasing adoption of Web 3.0 and blockchain technologies in the coming years.