http2

 

HTTP/2 https://http2.github.io/

 

HTTP/2

This is the home page for HTTP/2, a major revision of the Web's protocol. It is maintained by the IETF HTTP Working Group.

Tweets by @HTTP_2

What is HTTP/2?

HTTP/2 is a replacement for how HTTP is expressed 「on the wire.」 It is not a ground-up rewrite of the protocol; HTTP methods, status codes and semantics are the same, and it should be possible to use the same APIs as HTTP/1.x (possibly with some small additions) to represent the protocol.

The focus of the protocol is on performance; specifically, end-user perceived latency, network and server resource usage. One major goal is to allow the use of a single connection from browsers to a Web site.

The basis of the work was SPDY, but HTTP/2 has evolved to take the community’s input into account, incorporating several improvements in the process.

See our charter for more details of the scope of the work, as well as our Frequently Asked Questions.

See also HTTP/2 JP, maintained by the Japanese HTTP/2 community.

Specifications

HTTP/2 is comprised of two specifications:

• Hypertext Transfer Protocol version 2 - RFC7540
• HPACK - Header Compression for HTTP/2 - RFC7541

Implementations

We track known implementations of HTTP/2 on our wiki.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP/2

Goals

The working group charter mentions several goals and issues of concern:^[3]

• Create a negotiation mechanism that allows clients and servers to elect to use HTTP 1.1, 2.0, or potentially other non-HTTP protocols.
• Maintain high-level compatibility with HTTP 1.1 (for example with methods, status codes, URIs, and most header fields).
• Decrease latency to improve page load speed in web browsers by considering:
  • Data compression of HTTP headers
  • HTTP/2 Server Push
  • Pipelining of requests
  • Fixing the head-of-line blocking problem in HTTP 1.x
  • Multiplexing multiple requests over a single TCP connection
• Support common existing use cases of HTTP, such as desktop web browsers, mobile web browsers, web APIs, web servers at various scales, proxy servers, reverse proxy servers, firewalls, and content delivery networks.