The information on this page is for QuakeWorld. This is the reason there are so many different clients and servers. QuakeWorld today has advanced features that didn't exist in 1996, because iD Software released the original source code in 1999 and ever since the community improved the game. QuakeWorld is a modification for Quake that was developed with internet multiplayer in mind back in 1996. This page summarizes some crucial information to get you playing online, considering you landed on QuakeWorld now for some reason.
12.1.1 Note to Quake 3, Quake Live players.