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The HTTP/1.0 protocol is connectionless

Although we have just said that the client establishes a connection with a server, the protocol is called connectionless because once the single request has been satisfied, the connection is dropped. Other protocols typically keep the connection open, e.g. in an FTP session you can move around in remote directories, and the server keeps track of who you are, and where you are. While this greatly simplifies the server construction and relieves it of the performance penalties of session housekeeping, it makes the tracking of user behaviour, e.g. navigation paths between local documents, impossible. Many, if not most, web documents consist of one or more inline images, and these must be retrieved individually, incurring the overhead of repeated connections.

Copyright © 2003, John Yannakopoulos <giannak@csd.uoc.gr>