Final answer:
D. Protocols. The World Wide Web operates across the Internet using protocols, which include HTML, URI, and HTTP.
Step-by-step explanation:
The World Wide Web operates across the Internet using protocols. These are standardized sets of rules that ensure reliable communication between various systems on the web. Tim Berners-Lee, a scientist at CERN, developed the key technologies that underpin the web: HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), URI (Uniform Resource Identifier), and HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol). Together, these protocols enable webpages to be formatted, addressed, and transmitted across the Internet. Notably, HTML provides the structure and content of webpages, while URIs identify the web resources, and HTTP functions as the protocol for fetching these resources. These protocols were developed by Tim Berners-Lee and made freely available by CERN, leading to the subsequent popularization of the web with browsers like MOSAIC and Netscape Navigator.
It's interesting to note that before the widespread public adoption of the Internet and the World Wide Web, there were other forms of online communication such as AOL. However, as more information was added to the internet, the need for broadband connections grew, and thus, the foundation for the modern web was set. The release of the MOSAIC browser by Marc Andreessen in 1993 greatly popularized the Internet, which until then was primarily used by the military and academia. After CERN made the protocols free to use, software like Netscape Navigator emerged, further shaping the early web landscape.