Silence on the Wire

Making HTTP Better

The days when a typical website consisted of several kilobytes of static text and perhaps some minor graphic elements are long gone. As computers have become more powerful, and 300 bps modems have become easier to find in a museum than in every household, form has begun to dominate substance on the Web. Hundreds of kilobytes of images and subpages, subframes, and client-side scripts are commonly used to make sites more attractive and professional, with varying degrees of success. For many sites, multimedia contents have actually become the primary type of information served, with HTML providing only a placeholder for images, video, embedded Java programs, or games. The Web in general is no longer merely a way to tell others ...