Today's letter in the Networking ABC's is at the core of what makes the Internet work.  If you have used a browser to surf the Internet, then you have been, without knowing it, a user of the HTTP protocol.  

"H" is for HTTP

HTTP

Pronounced: āch'tē-tē-pē'

HTTP, or the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, is a communications protocol for the transfer of information on networks including intranets and the world wide web.  Developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), HTTP's original purpose was to provide a way to publish and retrieve hypertext pages over the Internet.  It has grown to support almost every type of text and media that is available across network including documents, audio, and video.  If a request for a resource begins with "http://" or "https://" then it is being served up through the HTTP protocol.