What is HTTP?

HTTP is that mysterious acronym that almost always appears in the address bar of your internet browser, right in front of the name of the website you are currently visiting.

example of address bar showing http use

HTTP is basically an agreed method for transferring web pages between the web page you are visiting and your internet browser. If you are interested in all the technical details about it, you can find it at Wikipedia.

Do I need to type http:// in front of the website name?

Absolutely not. You can go ahead and just type in the website address of the site you want to visit, and your browser will find the web site for you.

What do I need to know about HTTP?

Not much at all. Only your internet browser needs to be concerned with HTTP. There's only one occasion you may want to pay attention to it. When you visit a site where you will have to provide private information such as credit card details, etc, you want to have a look at the word in front of the website name and make sure it says https://

Note that it says https, not just http at the end. This means that it is a secure link. If it only says http:// then watch out because your data is not transferred securely to the website you are visiting.

If you want to visit one of these secure sites by typing the website name in the address bar, you have to type the whole thing including the https:// part. Hence, you would type https://www.extrasupersafebank.com/signon.html to go to the secure site to do your online banking transactions at this hypothetical bank.

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