What is the difference between internet and intranet?

I can offer my own knowledge, which may or may not be correct, but it's what I've come to believe:
The Internet is the big one: The huge network that connects all the computers in the world. Most of us know that.
An Intranet, I believe, could be somewhat of a miniature Internet, or just a network, that only includes certain computers. I don't think there could be things like websites on this smaller network, but I imagine the network could become very big, for example, an entire office building working on the same network, sharing resources such as files, printers, and things like that.

That's what I think. If anyone knows better than me, please, let us know. I am interested to know if I'm correct or not, as well as helping the original poster here get the whole truth!

An Intranet is a group of linked Computers,say for example represented by a University Network,or NASA,or a Business,dedicated to their own particular line of work.The Material on this network would be private,ie not designed to be accessible to the General Public. However,computers within this network may have an internet connection.You hear stories of hackers trying to break in to business or Government computer files..the Internet linked Intranet machine would be one means by which they'd attempt a "Hack".

Internet is distributed on a public WAN, which is Wide Area Network. Intranet is a private WAN. To simply put it, internet is what we use right now, and is distributed worldwide through many links of WANs. That's why they call it the World Wide Web, it looks like a big chain of webs. Intranet is a private one, meaning the one probably used at your office to cater services like instant messaging, file sharing, print server and other things. While intranet is private, it can also connect to the internet through an Internet service provider. In that way the intranet is not exposed to the public domains, meaning that outside people like me can't access that network. I hope I provided you with information helpful to your inquiry.

first some basic about network. networks are physically connected with one other in various topologies. LAN, MAN and WAN are three broad network categories. now you can have lan and/or wan within your organization and is know as intranet or private network. two private network can get connected through some public network and that public network which is not part of your network is called as internet. it could be IP or frame relay based network. now a days mpls based networks are more populet.

lay mans internet is based on ip/ egp/ bgp protocols. well in short local or private network are intranet and public network are internet.

To avoid a long string of comments that would be difficult to do... I'd like to respond to each of these posters' responses:
You are all absolutely right, and apparently, I wasn't far off. One thing that I forgot to mention, that all of you did, is that Internet is public and Intranet is private. One other thing is the fact that Intranet can have a connection to the Internet, therefore providing all the computers on that network access to the Internet!

internet is open to everyone except for for some usernames and passwords.Whereas intranet is only within a company.
Intranet is a zone where people of same organisation can access it.

internet is the single largest global WAN,linking virtually every country,continent,and organization in the world.Internet is a public network.

Intanet is a private network,where users from a corporate network use their internet skills to obrain private company inforamation.Intranet is accessible to internal users from the company.

There's also Extranet
An extranet is a division of a private network that is accessible to a limited number of external users, such as business partners, suppliers, and certain customers.

Everyone has done a pretty good job of explaining this for you. Basics for me is Internet is public, Intranet is private.

hi

Well lets first state that there is an internet and the Internet. An internet (small 'i' ) describes a network of networks...2 or more networks connected to each other so that they can communicate ( an inter-network of networks).

The Internet (notice the capital 'I') is an internet (small i) but its the biggest one in the world that connects millions of computers around the world. an internet can be public or private but the Internet is public and free. So the Internet is a type of internet.

An intranet is a network (can also be an internet-small 'i')that borrows the capabilities of the Internet but access to its resources are limited to the local network or the people who own it.

Many companies use intranets. Here the company's computers are linked to each other and they can send emails, have their own intra - websites, messengers and share other resources like software and printers. These resources are however limited to those who are apart of that network. Outsiders are not allowed access and are not usually connected in anyway to that intra-network.

When outsiders are allowed to connect to an intranet it is also called an extranet. Intranets are private to the company and usually host sites (usually about the company, company news and notices, company products and services) that only computers on the intranet can access.

Intranet users can also access the Internet given that they subscribe to an ISP (Internet Service Provider).

So here are the terms:
internet - a network of networks
Internet - the world wide connection of computers all over the world
intranet - a privately owned network that borrows features of the Internet but is inaccessable to outsiders
extranet - an intranet that allows access to outsiders who have a valid password and username.

Hope I helped somewhat.
Shauna aka Techauna

The Internet is the world wide web. It can be accessed from almost anywhere in the world by anyone. That iw what you are using when you are on MyLot and similar websites. Intranet is a private version of the Internet that might possibly be used by a business or company or something like that. Probably a very good explanation of this can be found on Wikipedia.