In Firefox, Ctrl+Shift+Enter adds “http://www.” at the beginning and “.org/” at the end. When I type
forums.opensuseand press the hotkey combination, but I didnt get anywhere. However, when i typed forums.opensuse.org, I got to the forums page. Any explanations?
The answer may well be in your own instructions, as doing so links to
http://www.forums.opensuse.org/
There is no www needed… 
It’s just http://forums.opensuse.org
MaarteOS wrote:
>
> The answer may well be in your own instructions, as doing so links to
>
> http://www.forums.opensuse.org/
>
> There is no www needed…
>
> It’s just http://forums.opensuse.org
>
>
I understand that. However, i thought it doesn’t matter whether we put a www
or not but in this case it does. that is what i want to understand.
The part that follows after the http:// in a URL is the full qualified hostname. Before the first dot is the hostname, after it is the domainname (we will not talk now bout what may follow that). It is up to those who gave the host a name to decide if it is www or whatever. Maybe many people give the name www to a host that has a http server on it, but it is not a law.
I forgot to add for your understanding that often when you only provide a domainname in your URL somewhere a decission may be made that because you are using the http protocol, you may be interrested in being served by the http server in that domain. so the www can be added in front if that is the name where the sever is, but it is only when you are to lazy to specify what you want and an intelligent guess may be made about what you want. Let this not lure you into thinking you do it correct.
thank you for helping me understand.