The internet is about to get faster and safer thanks to the number '2', though there's a bit more to it than that
What is it?
An update to the HTTP web protocol, the first since 1999, when HTTP1.1 was introduced. The technical details behind the new protocol are rather complicated, and there are a lot of acronyms involved, but its benefit is easy to understand: it will speed up the internet by making web pages load faster. It is based on Google’s protocol SPDY (pronounced “speedy”) which has been working in the background since 2009 to make the internet faster.
Before we go any further, what's a protocol?
It’s a set of internationally agreed rules that regulate how computers send information to each other. A protocol decides how this information is structured, and how it is sent and received. Without protocols, the internet would cease to work.
The most famous protocol is HTTP (it’s what the ‘p’ stands for: Hypertext Transfer Protocol), which you’ll recognise as the prefix before 4vww’ at the beginning of a URL It controls the connection between your browser and the server hosting a website. Protocols are approved by international or industrywide organisations - in the case of HTTP/2, this was the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
Why do we need a new protocol?
Because the existing one - HTTP1.1 -is ill-equipped to cope with all the information crammed on to today’s websites. When you type a URL, your browser has to request the elements of the web page, such as text, photos and videos, from the website’s server. When HTTP1.1 was established in 1999, websites contained far less information than they do now, and so had to make fewer requests.
So how is HTTP/2 faster?
It uses new ways of transporting information between the browser and server. Using two new features, called ‘multiplexing’ and ‘header field compression’, browsers can send multiple requests for information at the same time - think of it like sending all the requests in one envelope. Using HTTP1.1, your browser has to ask for each piece of information individually, which is like sending a new envelope for each request. This means you’ll notice the biggest difference on web pages that have lots of elements, such as images, videos and text, making them load much faster.
You’ll probably notice the biggest increase in speeds when browsing the web on a phone and tablet because page-loading times on mobile devices are currently so slow.
How soon will I notice the difference?
Don’t expect dramatically faster speeds overnight. Mark Nottingham, who chairs the IETF’s HTTP working group, says that HTTP/2 “is not magic web performance pixie dust”. Instead speeds should start “incrementally improving” once browsers and servers learn how best to use the protocol. He said that it’s “more accurate to view the new protocol as removing some key impediments to performance”.
It may take a couple of years before it’s used across the web. But most major tech companies have said they will soon adopt it, including Google, Twitter, Facebook, WordPress and Yahoo.
Will it also make browsing safer?
Yes, because it will incentivise websites to use advanced security protocols that encrypt communications between computers and servers. Google and Mozilla, who respectively run the Chrome and Firefox browsers, say they will only support HTTP/2 if it supports the latest encryption protocol, called TLS. This means, to make sure their web pages are loaded as quickly as possible, websites will have to use TLS encryption.
Do I need to do anything?
Nope. You don’t need to type anything differently in your browser bar. Just sit back, log on, and enjoy a faster internet.