The two websites Britain cannot live without are the BBC and social networking site Facebook, new research has found.

The top five websites were revealed to be Facebook (24%), BBC (20%), Amazon (9%), Gmail (5%) and Yahoo (5%), in a poll for Nominet, the company that runs the .uk internet infrastructure.

Facebook was chosen by 32% of women, while for men (26%) the BBC website was in the number one position.

Almost half of those quizzed (46%) said the best thing about the web was finding quick answers to questions, while a quarter (25%) said that what they liked the most was finding old friends.

A further quarter of people (24%) said that they used the web most to help with something that was a cause of worry.

For young people aged 18 to 24, the search for a job was higher up the list - with 28% of them citing "finding a job" as the best thing the web has given them.

The survey of 2,001 adults was commissioned to celebrate the web's birthday today, marking 25 years since Sir Tim Berners-Lee published the paper that served as the blueprint for the modern web.

Lesley Cowley, chief executive of Nominet, said: "The web is such an integral part of everyday life that we simply can't live without it.

"It has changed to something beyond what even Sir Tim and his colleagues could have imagined 25 years ago, when they were looking for an easier way to share and structure information.

"The social, political and economic impact of the web makes it a story we are all part of, and to which we all contribute daily, whether that's finding the answer to a question or connecting with friends and colleagues."