What happens when you open a website

A tiny journey that takes a fraction of a second.

You type an address and press Enter. In well under a second, a surprising number of things happen. Step through the journey:

Quick check

What does DNS do?

1. Draws the page
2. Turns a name like crooli.com into an address computers can reach
3. Encrypts your password
4. Stores your cookies

Answer: Turns a name like crooli.com into an address computers can reach. DNS is the internet's phone book: it maps human-friendly names to IP addresses.