GIVE ANSWERS - English

Äänestä nyt!vastattuKieli kysymys
Hello . Could you please explain me what’s the difference between ”on the Internet” and ”over the Internet”?

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fiona_henr profile picture fiona_henrMay 2021

There is no real difference in meaning. People might say "on the internet” to explain an activity. For example, ”I am always on the internet” or ”I pay my bills on the internet”.

On the internet can be used instead of ”using the internet”. Over the internet is mostly used to explain ”where” something was done or occurred, such as "I watched the movie over the internet".

I rarely use "over the internet". It is probably simply a regional difference in langauge, but either phrase is fine.

  • AussieInBg profile picture AussieInBgMay 2021
    It’s an answer which is possibly applicable to American English but doesn’t really cover how other English speakers around the world are actually the terminology ”internet”. Native American English speakers form a minority around the world regarding this - particularly taking into account huge numbers of people using English as a lingua franca over internet.

    Non-American English speakers more commonly use ”on internet” to described sitting at a computer or other device linked to internet via some sort of network connection.

    ”over the internet” seems to be rarely used by non-technical American English speakers. However, it is very common among Non-American English speakers to talk about things like ”downloading over internet” and so on.

debbie_goo profile picture debbie_gooMay 2021

I think Fiona gave a great answer. Correct English would be Can you explain to me?

AussieInBg profile picture AussieInBgMay 2021
American English uses mainly the preposition ”on”, ”on the Internet”. There is one exception to this that I’ve noticed - American users who have a technically competent understanding of ”Internet” being a type of computer network. They use other prepositions in phrases such as ”over the internet”. More on that later.

Incidentally, the capitalised ”Internet” is often used in standard American English whereas the uncapitalised ”internet” is primarily used in British English. However, American English is catching up to British English by more commonly using ”internet”.

Nevertheless, other dialects of English use a wider range of prepositions to describe activity associated with this computer network.

The majority of native English speakers tend to drop the article ”the”. When they describe the internet in terms of being a place, it is usually ”on internet”. Some native speakers will even use ”in internet” for this.

”over” gets used by most native English speakers to describe actions which happen via the internet, such as file downloads from a server. American English speakers who tend to use it like that tend to be technically literate with networking however.

It’s still evolving how to write/describe internet - whether it is capitalisation internet/Internet, whether a definite article ”the” is being used and which pronouns such as on/over/in.

My guess as to where usage will evolve to an ”agreed”:

”on internet” - generic term to describe using a computer linked to our computer network. ”in internet” will become even less and less over time.

”over internet” - describing actions requiring the explicit network capacities and links of routers and so on.

”internet” has evolved from being the specific computer network from the 1970s-1990s. So the article ”the” will completely drop out as it has for most people aside from native American English speakers and ”I” will no longer be capitalised because the term ”internet is very generic.