HTTP/3 – Why should I care?

Internet foundations reworked.

Miloslav Pojman

HTTP Internet Privacy Web Web Protocols

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HTTP is the foundation of the current web, and HTTP/3 is the upcoming major version of it. The new version is built on top of the QUIC transport protocol, originally developed in Google.

HTTP/3 can change the Internet as we know it today. Since its beginning in the 90s, HTTP transfers data over TCP to ensure reliable connections between clients and servers. QUIC is a TCP alternative, reimplemented on top of unreliable and connectionless UDP.

Proprietary Google implementation of QUIC is deployed worldwide and supported by Chrome browsers. Future HTTP/3 will be hopefully standardized by IETF soon, but many diverse implementations are available already today.

HTTP/3 improves performance and increases privacy. The switch from TCP to QUIC allows us to address the inherent limitations of previous HTTP versions. The QUIC protocol is completely encrypted, including traffic control headers, which are visible in TCP.

This talk introduces HTTP/3 and the underlaying QUIC protocol. It shows both advantages and disadvantages of the new technology, and it describes the landscape of the current implementations and suggests what you can try today.

Type: Talk (45 mins); Python level: Beginner; Domain level: Intermediate


Miloslav Pojman

Akamai Technologies

Miloslav works for the Protocol optimization team at Akamai. They deployed QUIC to more than 100 000 servers, and then continuously measure and improve its performance.

He started to write web applications in 2005. His main domains are Python and software design, which he currently utilizes for DevOps and data science tasks.