Tutorial by Examples

HTTP describes how an HTTP client, such as a web browser, sends an HTTP request via a network to an HTTP server, which then sends an HTTP response back to the client. The HTTP request is typically either a request for an online resource, such as a web page or image, but may also include additiona...

HTTP/1.0 was described in RFC 1945. HTTP/1.0 does not have some features that are today de-facto required on the Web, such as the Host header for virtual hosts. However, HTTP clients and servers sometimes still declare they use HTTP/1.0 if they have incomplete implementation of the HTTP/1.1 protoc...

HTTP/1.1 has originally been specified in 1999 in RFC 2616 (protocol) and RFC 2617 (authentication), but these documents are now obsolete and should not be used as a reference: Don’t use RFC2616. Delete it from your hard drives, bookmarks, and burn (or responsibly recycle) any copies that are pri...

HTTP/2 (RFC 7540) changed on-the-wire format of HTTP from a simple text-based request and response headers to binary data format sent in frames. HTTP/2 supports compression of the headers (HPACK). This reduced overhead of requests, and enabled receiving of multiple responses simultaneously over a s...

The first version of HTTP that came into existence is 0.9, often referred to as "HTTP As Implemented." A common description of 0.9 is "a subsect of the full HTTP [i.e. 1.0] protocol." However, this greatly fails to illustrate the disparity in capabilities between 0.9 and 1.0. Ne...