HTTP/2
A major revision of HTTP that enables faster, more efficient web communication through multiplexing and other features.
Quick Definition
A major revision of HTTP that enables faster, more efficient web communication through multiplexing and other features.
Full Explanation
HTTP/2 is a major revision of the HTTP protocol that provides significant performance improvements over HTTP/1.1. Key features include multiplexing (multiple requests over a single connection), header compression (HPACK), server push, and stream prioritization. HTTP/2 eliminates the need for performance workarounds like domain sharding and sprite sheets. Multiplexing particularly improves performance for pages with many resources by removing the head-of-line blocking problem. HTTP/2 requires HTTPS in practice. Most modern servers and CDNs support HTTP/2 by default. HTTP/3 (based on QUIC) offers further improvements.