This is used for secure transmissions. Data flowing under this protocol is encrypted. Web browsers can also communicate with non-web servers such as Gopher or telnet servers. The URL in the browser specifies the protocol. That is, only letters, digits, punctuation marks, and a few other characters are allowed.
All text is transmitted the same way without font, size, style, or other characteristics applied.
Even graphics files are encoded as a sequence of text characters for internet transfer. Creating web pages consists of putting in text and HTML tags for formatting and for links to other pages or entities. You can see the actual HTML code for any document you are viewing in Netscape by pulling down under View to Document Source . Microsoft's Internet Explorer is the other major browser in use. Netscape is produced by the same folks who put out the first major browser Mosaic while at the University of Illinois.