HTTP

HTTP
International standard
  • RFC 1945 HTTP/1.0
  • RFC 9110 HTTP Semantics
  • RFC 9111 HTTP Caching
  • RFC 9112 HTTP/1.1
  • RFC 9113 HTTP/2
  • RFC 7541 HTTP/2: HPACK Header Compression
  • RFC 8164 HTTP/2: Opportunistic Security for HTTP/2
  • RFC 8336 HTTP/2: The ORIGIN HTTP/2 Frame
  • RFC 8441 HTTP/2: Bootstrapping WebSockets with HTTP/2
  • RFC 9114 HTTP/3
  • RFC 9204 HTTP/3: QPACK: Field Compression
Developed byinitially CERN; IETF, W3C
Introduced1991 (1991)
Websitehttps://httpwg.org/specs/

The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model 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 a mouse click or by tapping the screen in a web browser.

Development of HTTP was initiated by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN in 1989 and summarized in a simple document describing the behavior of a client and a server using the first HTTP version, named 0.9.[2] That version was subsequently developed, eventually becoming the public 1.0.[3]

Development of early HTTP Requests for Comments (RFCs) started a few years later in a coordinated effort by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), with work later moving to the IETF.

HTTP/1 was finalized and fully documented (as version 1.0) in 1996.[4] It evolved (as version 1.1) in 1997 and then its specifications were updated in 1999, 2014, and 2022.[5]

Its secure variant named HTTPS is used by more than 85% of websites.[6] HTTP/2, published in 2015, provides a more efficient expression of HTTP's semantics "on the wire". As of January 2024, it is used by 36% of websites[7] and supported by almost all web browsers (over 98% of users).[8] It is also supported by major web servers over Transport Layer Security (TLS) using an Application-Layer Protocol Negotiation (ALPN) extension[9] where TLS 1.2 or newer is required.[10][11]

HTTP/3, the successor to HTTP/2, was published in 2022.[12] As of February 2024, it is now used on 29% of websites[13] and is supported by most web browsers, i.e. (at least partially) supported by 97% of users.[14] HTTP/3 uses QUIC instead of TCP for the underlying transport protocol. Like HTTP/2, it does not obsolesce previous major versions of the protocol. Support for HTTP/3 was added to Cloudflare and Google Chrome first,[15][16] and is also enabled in Firefox.[17] HTTP/3 has lower latency for real-world web pages, if enabled on the server, and loads faster than with HTTP/2, in some cases over three times faster than HTTP/1.1 (which is still commonly only enabled).[18]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference rfc9110 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Tim Berner-Lee (1991-01-01). "The Original HTTP as defined in 1991". www.w3.org. World Wide Web Consortium. Retrieved 2010-07-24.
  3. ^ Tim Berner-Lee (1992). "Basic HTTP as defined in 1992". www.w3.org. World Wide Web Consortium. Retrieved 2021-10-19.
  4. ^ In RFC 1945. That specification was then overcome by HTTP/1.1.
  5. ^ RFC 2068 (1997) was obsoleted by RFC 2616 in 1999, which was obsoleted by RFC 7230 in 2014, which was obsoleted by RFC 9110 in 2022.
  6. ^ "Usage Statistics of Default protocol https for websites". w3techs.com. Retrieved 2024-01-05.
  7. ^ "Usage Statistics of HTTP/2 for websites". w3techs.com. Retrieved 2024-01-05.
  8. ^ "Can I use... Support tables for HTML5, CSS3, etc". caniuse.com. Retrieved 2024-01-05.
  9. ^ Friedl, S.; Popov, A.; Langley, A.; Stephan, E. (July 2014). Transport Layer Security (TLS) Application-Layer Protocol Negotiation Extension. IETF. doi:10.17487/RFC7301. RFC 7301.
  10. ^ Belshe, M.; Peon, R.; Thomson, M. "Hypertext Transfer Protocol Version 2, Use of TLS Features". Archived from the original on 2013-07-15. Retrieved 2015-02-10.
  11. ^ Benjamin, David. Using TLS 1.3 with HTTP/2. doi:10.17487/RFC8740. RFC 8740. Retrieved 2020-06-02. This lowers the barrier for deploying TLS 1.3, a major security improvement over TLS 1.2.
  12. ^ HTTP/3. 6 June 2022. doi:10.17487/RFC9114. RFC 9114. Retrieved 2022-06-06.
  13. ^ "Usage Statistics of HTTP/3 for websites". w3techs.com. Retrieved 2024-01-08.
  14. ^ "Can I use... Support tables for HTML5, CSS3, etc". canIuse.com. Retrieved 2024-01-08.
  15. ^ Cimpanu, Catalin (26 September 2019). "Cloudflare, Google Chrome, and Firefox add HTTP/3 support". ZDNet. Retrieved 27 September 2019.
  16. ^ "HTTP/3: the past, the present, and the future". The Cloudflare Blog. 2019-09-26. Retrieved 2019-10-30.
  17. ^ "Firefox Nightly supports HTTP 3 – General – Cloudflare Community". 2019-11-19. Retrieved 2020-01-23.
  18. ^ "HTTP/3 is Fast". Request Metrics. Retrieved 2022-07-01.

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