Google adds support for http/2 in Chrome 40

Google has announced that the upcoming Chrome 40 will not only support spdy but will move to the http/2 protocol. Http/2 is largely based on the spdy protocol developed by Google and is to become the successor to http 1.1.

Google states that the http/2 support in Chrome will come to users in the coming weeks with version 40. At the beginning of next year, the internet giant wants to drop support for the spdy protocol altogether. The tls extension npn will then no longer be supported either: Chrome will use the alpn extension from now on.

The network protocol spdy was developed by Google and has been included in the popular web browser since Chrome 6. Spdy served as an addition to the existing http 1.1 protocol and aimed to reduce the loading time of web pages. For this, the protocol uses compression, multiplexing and flow control, among other things. The protocol also enforces https connections. Google claimed in 2013 that websites could be requested 40 percent faster on average.

Google’s spdy protocol provided important input for the development of http/2. This protocol integrates much of spdy’s innovations. Http/2 currently has draft status, but it is expected that the protocol will eventually become one of the fundamental internet standards as a replacement for HTTP 1.1.