You may not have heard of Hypertext Transfer Protocol version 2, but it is going to make your internet experience a whole lot faster.
HTTP is the protocol used to power the World Wide Web by defining how hypertext (the code in webpages) is to be formatted and transmitted and how Web servers and browsers should respond to those commands. A URL typed into a browser, for example, becomes an HTTP command to the server telling it to retrieve the given Web page.
Currently, the most common version of HTTP in use is HTTP/1.1. The HTTP/2 standard is expected to speed up loading of Web pages by transporting data between browser and server.
The new protocol is backward-compatible with the older protocol, so existing webpages will work just fine. HTTP/2 speeds up web browsing by carrying more data in a single pass with each request to load the requested Web site. This is especially important for smart phone access, which now accounts for about 33 percent of all Web access, up from 25 percent a year ago, according to statistics from StatCounter.
Once the new standards are published, sites and hosting companies can choose to start implementing them.
Google, which was a driving force behind the new standard, will begin implementing it in the Chrome web browser next year. Google developed the network protocol known as SPDY ("speedy") for transporting content over the Web with reduced latency. SPDY serves as the basis of HTTP/2.
