In an attempt to teach the average person about the fundamentals of browsers and the web, Google has released an interactive online book that explains concepts like, TCP/IP, HTML, browser extensions and malware.

The short book, 20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web, is a step-by-step explanation of the web and how it works. It was created by the Google Chrome team using HTML5, but it also features a lot of clever illustrations by award-winning German illustrator and children's author Christoph Niemann.

The focus of the book is on 19 different topics (plus a recap, making for 20 things). It starts with "What Is the Internet?" and then dives into cloud computing, web apps, web programming languages, browsers, privacy, security and open source.

While regular readers of Mashable may be very familiar with these web concepts (and much more), Google realizes that most people have no clue about the function of a browser or what HTML5 actually is. This was exemplified last year when Google took to the streets and asked people, "What is a browser?" Less than 8% of the people it polled gave a correct answer.

With 20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web (available at 20thingsIlearned.com), Google can point these users to a website that will fill them in on the basics. While it's not a perfect solution (we suspect the book's too long for many in our attention-deficient society), it's definitely something I'd show to my mom or my technologically challenged friends.

What do you think of Google's new Internet book?





