The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. [1] HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, where hypertext documents include hyperlinks to other resources that the user can easily access, for example, by clicking a mouse or tapping the screen in a web browser.
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Tim Berners-Lee began HTTP development at CERN in 1989. Early HTTP Requests for Comments (RFCs) were developed collaboratively by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), with work eventually shifting to the IETF.
In the client–server computing model, HTTP serves as a request–response protocol. A web browser, for example, can act as the client, while an application running on a computer that hosts a website can act as the server. The client sends the server an HTTP request message. The server sends a response message to the client after providing resources such as HTML files and other content or performing other duties on the client's behalf. The answer comprises request completion status information as well as requested content in its message body.
A user agent is something like a web browser (UA). Indexing software used by search providers (web crawlers), voice browsers, mobile apps, and other software that accesses, consumes, or displays web material are examples of user agents.
HTTP is intended to allow intermediary network nodes to improve or enable client-server interaction. Web cache servers, which deliver material on behalf of upstream servers to enhance response time, are frequently used by high-traffic websites. To decrease network traffic, web browsers cache previously viewed online pages and reuse them wherever possible. HTTP proxy servers at private network boundaries can help clients without globally routable addresses communicate by forwarding messages to remote servers.
HTTP is an application layer protocol that was developed within the context of the Internet protocol stack. Its definition presupposes an underlying and trustworthy transport layer protocol, of which Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is a common example. However, HTTP can be configured to use untrustworthy protocols such as the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), as shown in HTTPU and the Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP).
Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) use the Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) schemes http and https to identify and locate HTTP resources on the network. URIs are encoded as hyperlinks in HTML texts, as described in RFC 3986, to build connected hypertext pages.
HTTP/1.1 is an update to the original HTTP protocol (HTTP/1.0). Every resource request in HTTP/1.0 requires a separate connection to the same server. After the page has been sent, HTTP/1.1 can reuse a connection to download images, scripts, stylesheets, and so on. As a result, HTTP/1.1 communications encounter less latency, as the setup of TCP connections incurs significant overhead .[13]
The Past
Tim Berners-Lee is the inventor of the World Wide Web.
Ted Nelson invented the term "hypertext" in 1965 as part of the Xanadu Project, which was inspired by Vannevar Bush's 1930s concept of the microfilm-based information retrieval and management "memex" system detailed in his 1945 essay "As We May Think." Tim Berners-Lee and his team at CERN are credited for creating HTTP, as well as HTML and the associated technology for a web server and a text-based web browser. Berners-Lee suggested the "WorldWideWeb" project, today known as the World Wide Web, in 1989. The earliest version of the protocol had only one method, GET, which requested a page from a server.[14] The server's response was always an HTML page .[15]
HTTP V0.9 was the first documented version of HTTP (1991). In 1995, Dave Raggett led the HTTP Working Group (HTTP WG), which wanted to expand the protocol with extended operations, extended negotiation, richer meta-information, and a security protocol that became more efficient by adding additional methods and header fields.[16][17] In 1996, RFC 1945 officially introduced and recognised HTTP V1.0.
The HTTP Working Group planned to release new standards in December 1995[18], and support for pre-standard HTTP/1.1 based on the then-developing RFC 2068 (dubbed HTTP-NG) was quickly accepted by major browser makers in early 1996. The new browsers were quickly adopted by users. One web hosting provider reported in March 1996 that more than 40% of browsers in use on the Internet were HTTP 1.1 compatible. By June 1996, 65 percent of the browsers accessing their servers were HTTP/1.1 compliant, according to the same web hosting company.[19] The HTTP/1.1 standard, as defined in RFC 2068, was officially released in January 1997. In June 1999, RFC 2616 was issued with improvements and modifications to the HTTP/1.1 standard.
HTTP/1 was officially documented (as version 1.1) in 1997.[2] By 2021, around 30% of websites will only support HTTP/1.
HTTP/2 is a more efficient expression of HTTP's semantics "on the wire" that was published in 2015 and is now supported by virtually all web browsers[3] and major web servers over Transport Layer Security (TLS) using an Application-Layer Protocol Negotiation (ALPN) extension[4] where TLS 1.2 or newer is required.
HTTP/3 is the proposed successor to HTTP/2,[7][8] and 2/3rds of web browser users (including desktop and mobile) can currently use it on the 19.0 percent of websites that support it; it uses QUIC as the underlying transport protocol rather than TCP. It does not, like HTTP/2, supersede prior major versions of the protocol. HTTP/3 support was added to Cloudflare and Google Chrome in September 2019 (it is now enabled by default),[9][10] and can be enabled in stable versions of Firefox[11] and Safari.