What are the differences between hardware and software?

Computer hardware is any physical device, something that you are able to touch and software is a collection of instructions and code installed into the computer and cannot be touched. For example, the computer monitor and the mouse you use to navigate is computer hardware. The Internet browser that allowed you to visit several pages and the operating system that the browser is running on is software.

External hardware examples

Flat-panel, Monitor, and LCD

Keyboard

Mouse

Printer

Scanner

Internal hardware examples

Blu-Ray, CD-ROM, and DVD

CPU

Hard drive

Motherboard

RAM

Sound card

Video card

Examples of types of software

Antivirus (AVG)

Audio / Music program (iTunes)

Database (Access)

Device drivers

E-mail (Outlook)

Games (World of Warcraft)

Internet browser (Google Crome)

Movie player (VLC)

Operating system (Windows XP)

Photo / Graphics program (Photoshop)

Presentation (Powerpoint)

Programming language (Perl)

Simulation (Flight simulator)

Spreadsheet (Excel)

Utility (Compression, Disk Cleanup, Encryption, Registry cleaner, Screensaver)

Word processor (Word)