# What is HTTP/2?

DevFeed: [What is HTTP/2?](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/what-is-http-2-24936.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://codeahoy.com/2016/04/23/what-is-http2/>)

Author: umer

Published: 2016-04-23T00:00:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Code Ahoy - Articles](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/code-ahoy-articles.md>)

Topics: [HTTP](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/http.md>), [servers](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/servers.md>), [Web](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/web.md>), [Firefox](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/firefox.md>)

Tags: [browsers](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/browsers.md>), [efficiency](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/efficiency.md>), [firefox](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/firefox.md>), [hacks](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/hacks.md>), [http](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/http.md>), [internet-explorer](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/internet-explorer.md>), [make](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/make.md>), [performance](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/performance.md>), [protocol](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/protocol.md>), [security](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/security.md>), [servers](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/servers.md>), [standards](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/standards.md>)

## AI overview

This article explains HTTP/2 as a major update intended to make the web faster and more efficient while addressing shortcomings of HTTP/1.1. It describes how HTTP/1.1 workarounds increased complexity and introduces Google's SPDY as a stepping stone toward HTTP/2.

## Source excerpt

There are many reasons to feel excited about HTTP/2. It is the first major update of the HTTP protocol in 16 years! It was long overdue as the web dramatically evolved over the years. HTTP/2 is aimed at making the web faster and overcome many shortcomings of HTTP/1.1. HTTP/2 brings advancements to speed, efficiency, standardization and security. HTTP/1.1: Simple Protocol, Complex Workarounds HTTP was envisioned as a simple, application level, request-response protocol. Clients connect to servers and make HTTP requests asking for resource. Servers send response back and terminate the connection. HTTP/1.1 was released in 1999 to keep up with the performance demands of 90's brochure-esque websites. Its major improvement over its predecessor, the HTTP/1.0, was that it allowed a connection to be reused to send multiple requests and responses. This improves performance by eliminating connection setup overhead for each request. In 2004, Web 2.0 ushered in the new era of rich user experience and collaboration. It allowed users to interact with websites, leave comments, indulge in social sharing and enjoy many new features. New technologies emerged and many Web 2.0 websites like Wikipedia, Flickr and YouTube went on to become huge successes. While all this was going on, the protocol that ran it all, HTTP/1.1, was having trouble keeping up. The websites were growing significantly in size and complexity and it wasn't designed to handle that. So smart people did what they do best: they invented workarounds, so-called best practices, to overcome HTTP/1.1 limitations. Hacks like request pipelining, domain sharding, sprite sheets and data inlining were used to optimize performance. This added complexity on top of HTTP/1.1 and introduced regressions like unnecessary downloads, poor caching etc. Lack of standards meant that web developers had to deal with different browsers and versions. Ugh! I remember countless hours I sunk into tweaking websites to look great on both Firefox and