An overview of HTTP

An overview of HTTP

HTTP stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. It is a set of rules for fetching resources across the internet. With HTTP, the client or recipient initiates the request and not the other way round

A feature of HTTP is that it is stateless. This means that HTTP does not store data related to the request or the server response. After the server responds, that connection is lost. Thus, for each request to fetch a resource, HTTP would make a new connection to the server to fetch resources. This will be problematic for users that have to interact with certain pages. For example, i would have to log in every time i want to view my Twitter profile or feed. But, HTTP cookies solve this by allowing the creation of a session. This cookie is then shared between the client and server on each request.

All devices that can connect to the internet utilize HTTP. It is simple and it allows computers to communicate and transfer data across the internet