Web creator sorry for slashes

One of the creators of the worldwide web has apologised for the double slashes at the start of internet addresses.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist, said there was no good reason for them.

"Really, if you think about it, it doesn't need the //. I could have designed it not to have the //", The London Times reported.

He said he could not have predicted 30 years ago that the two small marks would cause so much annoyance.

"There you go, it seemed like a good idea at the time," he said.

He was involved in writing the code which transformed a private network into the public web.

Modern web browsers will now usually fill in the 'http://' at the start of web addresses for you.

- NZ HERALD STAFF