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Hate spam on the Web? Blame Tim Berners-Lee.

Abhor porn pop-ups while surfing? Fault Tim Berners-Lee.

Annoyed at having to look for that blasted "slash" key when typing two slashes on a Web address? Again, turn to Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

Twenty years ago today, Berners-Lee, a British computer scientist at Geneva's CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, established the first communication link between a server and an HTTP client.

In other words, he created the first connection on the World Wide Web.

Since he's widely credited with inventing the Web, Berners-Lee is the one who deserves praise whenever you surf the Web for the hottest viral video or for breaking news about Lindsay Lohan's latest faux pas. Just search for his name on Wikipedia. You can thank him for the ability to do that, too.

"It [the Web] enables me to do things that I otherwise wouldn't be able to do," said Martin Berzins, director of the University of Utah's School of Computing. "I can read newspapers all over the world. I can find books on music that would be difficult to find. I can learn what people think about current events."

Berners-Lee's concept of linking computers resulted in a new modern-day communication medium as significant and as ubiquitous as the telephone or television and has opened up vast channels of global information to everyday people.

Not that the Web is exactly perfect. Just ask Berners-Lee himself, who says he would have eliminated the need for using two backslashes in a Web address if he could do it again.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," he once quipped.

There are, of course, bigger issues with the Web, including how it serves as a platform for annoying comments, unwanted in-your-face ads, and of course, the proliferation of pornography.

"I would put porn as the biggest problem of the Internet," said Parris Egbert, chairman of Brigham Young University's computer science department. "People can get access to stuff now they couldn't get before, and they can get it easily. That's the biggest concern I have — and for how that will affect people and society."

But as Berzins points out, the Web "is what you make it."

Berners-Lee, who couldn't be reached for comment for this story (he now works at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), agrees.

"I think the main thing to remember is that any really powerful thing can be used for good or evil," Berners-Lee writes on his own website. "Dynamite can be used to build tunnels or to make missiles. Engines can be put in ambulances or tanks. Nuclear power can be used for bombs or for electrical power. What is made of the Web is up to us. You, me and everyone else."

Berners-Lee came up with the idea of using "hypertext," the concept of linking text to connect information on multiple computers, and he created the HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) language, which is the foundation for the World Wide Web. Previously, only computer scientists with deep programming knowledge could transfer information from one computer to another. Berners-Lee, a graduate of Oxford University, made it easy enough that nonprogrammers can do it, too.

But don't confuse the creation of the Web with the invention of the Internet. In the late 1960s, the first worldwide computer network — known as ARPANET — was created along with help from the University of Utah. The U., plus UCLA, UC-Santa Barbara and Stanford, were connected on that first computer network. ARPANET then was developed for the U.S. Department of Defense.

"The University of Utah has been at the forefront of connectivity — the physical realization of the infrastructure of the Web," Berzins said.

Today, the Web has become an industry unto itself. One of its greatest accomplishments is that it has created jobs for millions of people, said Shad Vick, founder of Lunawebs, a Salt Lake City-based Web development company.

"We have whole industries coming out of the Web: search optimization firms, social networking firms, people getting full-time jobs as bloggers," he said. "There are complete industries evolving that didn't even exist five to 10 years ago. It all is connected to sharing data, and more industries will evolve."

So even with all its faults, there's not a lot to regret in the creation of the World Wide Web, Vick said.

"I love the Web, and it's not going away," he said. "It's still in its infancy. It's like a little embryo right now. The technology is advancing, and it's just going to get better."

vince@sltrib.com. Twitter: http://twitter.com/ohmytech.