HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP)

HTTP stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol. It is the primary protocol used to access the World Wide Web. Tim Berners-Lee led the development of HTTP at CERN in 1989, in collaboration with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

HTTP is a request-response protocol — also called a client-server protocol — that runs over TCP. The most common use of HTTP is between a web browser (the client) and a web server (the server). HTTP facilitates access of hypertext from the World Wide Web by defining how information is formatted and transmitted, and how web servers and browsers should respond to various commands.

A web page is written using a markup language like HTML and is stored on a web server for access via its URL. When a user opens a web browser and types in the URL of the intended web page, a logical communication link between the user's machine (the client) and the web server is created using HTTP.

For example, whenever we enter the URL http://www.ncert.nic.in in a browser, the browser sends an HTTP request to the web server where ncert.nic.in is hosted. The HTTP response from the web server fetches and sends the requested web page, which is then displayed on your browser. …