Welcome to the Evolution of HTTP

What is HTTP?

HTTP, known as Hypertext Transfer Protocol, forms the base for what the World Wide Web was built upon. Anytime someone tries to search the World Wide Web, HTTP is used to load said webpages using what is called hypertext links.

HTTP was designed at the application layer protocol of the internet protocol suite. According to RFC 7230, Hypertext Transfer Protocol is a stateless application-level request/response protocol that functions by the swapping of messages across a reliable connection (Fielding & Reschke, 1970). As just mentioned, HTTP is a stateless protocol, meaning that it does not maintain any memory of previous connections because each request is managed independently from one another.

To put the process of an HTTP interaction into better understanding, we can imagine a client (usually a browser) searching for something on the WWW, the HTTP request is sent to the server, and the server responds back with an HTTP response which displays the results of the query (What is HTTP? | cloudflare).