Transportation Protocols

Transportation protocols are essential for managing how data is transferred across networks. The most well-known and widely used transport layer protocols are:

TCP (Transmission Control Protocol)

• Reliable and connection-oriented.
• Ensures data arrives in order, without errors, and without duplicates.
• Therefor slower as udp.
• Used in: HTTP/HTTPS (web browsing), FTP (file transfers), SMTP/IMAP/POP3 (email), SSH

HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol)

Http is a text-based transfer protocol widely used in the web. It's used in browsers as well for e.g. REST calls

Gzip

It's possible to use HTTP with compression as long as the server and client both support it, which is nearly everywhere the case. Enabling GZIP will compress the text transferred between server and client.

• Smaller file sizes (up to 70–90% smaller).
• Faster page load times.
• Lower bandwidth usage.
• Better user experience and SEO performance.

Feature	HTTP without gzip	HTTP with gzip
Compression	No	Yes
File size	Larger	Smaller
Load speed	Slower	Faster
Bandwidth efficiency	Poor	Efficient
Server/browser load	Normal	Slight CPU overhead

HTTP/2

Http/2 is an improved version of http/1.1. The main improvements are:

• Multiplexing: Allows multiple resources to be requested and sent in parallel over a single connection.
• Header Compression: Reduces size of redundant headers, especially useful for APIs.
• Binary Framing: More efficient and less error-prone than text-based format of HTTP/1.1.
• Server Push: Lets the server proactively send assets (like CSS/JS) the browser will likely need.

So, if possible its good to switch to the new standard if possible. One drawback is, that http/2 is binary based, so it's harder to read the content.

Feature	HTTP/1.1	HTTP/2
Multiplexing	No – one request per connection	Yes – multiple requests per connection
Header compression	No	Yes (HPACK compression)
Protocol format	Text-based	Binary-based
Request prioritization	Limited	Supported
Server Push	Not supported	Supported
Latency & speed	Higher (slower)	Lower (faster)
Connection reuse	Limited	Efficient
Browser support	All browsers	All modern browsers

Comparisson of typical scenarios

Scenario	HTTP/1.1 Performance	HTTP/2 Performance	Speed Gain
Many small files (images, JS, CSS)	Slower, multiple connections	Multiplexed in one connection	20% – 50% faster
High-latency networks (e.g., mobile)	High delays, blocked requests	Faster with multiplexing	Up to 2× faster
Complex webpages with many assets	Blocked & serialized requests	Parallel asset loading	50% – 70% faster
Well-optimized sites	Already efficient	Slightly better	1.5× to 3× faster (in some cases)
Header size and overhead	Large, repetitive headers	Compressed with HPACK	Lower latency, smaller size

UDP

• Connectionless and faster than TCP.
• No guarantee of delivery, order, or error correction.
• Faster than tcp
• Used in: DNS (domain name resolution), VoIP (voice calls), Online gaming, Streaming media