HTTP

Abbreviation · Development

Definitions

  1. HTTP, or HyperText Transfer Protocol, is the application-layer protocol that powers the World Wide Web. It defines how clients (typically web browsers) and servers communicate by exchanging request and response messages. An HTTP request includes a method (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, PATCH, and others), a URL, headers containing metadata, and optionally a body with data. The server responds with a status code (200 for success, 404 for not found, 500 for server error, among many others), response headers, and a body containing the requested resource. HTTP is stateless, meaning each request is independent, but cookies and session tokens are used to maintain state across requests. HTTP/1.1 introduced persistent connections and chunked transfer encoding. HTTP/2 added multiplexing, header compression, and server push for improved performance. HTTP/3, built on the QUIC protocol over UDP, further reduces latency. HTTP is the foundation of REST APIs, web applications, and virtually all communication on the modern web.

    In plain English: The set of rules that web browsers and servers use to talk to each other — when you visit a URL, HTTP is the language your browser uses to ask for and receive the page.

    Example: "Every time you load a webpage, your browser sends an HTTP GET request — and has been doing so since 1991."

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