The full name of the standard application-level protocol used for file exchange on the World Wide Web is HTTP, or HyperText Transfer Protocol. The TCP/IP protocol and, later, the QUIC protocol are built on top of HTTP. Web servers respond to file requests via an HTTP service after being sent by web browsers, which are HTTP clients.
Tim Berners-Lee, one of the coauthors of the 1.0 definition, first suggested HTTP in 1989. Every every request from a client established a new connection with the server under HTTP/1.0 (sent in 1996), which did not handle all requests similarly through a single connection between a particular client and server. Persistent connections, client browser-based HTML file decompression, and numerous domain names using the same IP address are all features of HTTP/1.1, which was introduced in 1997.
HTTP is an extensible protocol which has evolved over time. It is an application layer protocol that is sent over TCP, or over a TLS-encrypted TCP connection, though any reliable transport protocol could theoretically be used. Due to its extensibility, it is used to not only fetch hypertext documents, but also images and videos or to post content to servers, like with HTML form results. HTTP can also be used to fetch parts of documents to update Web pages on demand.
HTTP is a client-server protocol, and the user-agent is the only thing that sends requests (or a proxy on behalf of it). The user-agent is often a web browser, although it can be anything, such as a robot that crawls the internet to build and maintain search engine indices.
A server receives each individual request, processes it, and then returns the response. Numerous entities, generally known as proxies, perform various tasks and function as gateways or caches between the client and the server.
HTTP is a client-server protocol, meaning requests are made by the recipient, which is often the Web browser, and it serves as the basis for all data communication on the Internet. The various sub-documents that are retrieved, such as text, layout descriptions, photos, videos, scripts, and more, are combined to form a complete document.
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