Global edge cloud platform Fastly, Inc. announced support for HTTP/3 and QUIC, the web’s newest protocols, built to power the modern internet. HTTP/3 and QUIC are primed to modernize the internet in a number of ways: faster response times, greater accessibility worldwide, and setting the standard for built-in encryption, just to name a few.
HTTP/3 is the newest evolution
As the world becomes increasingly web-reliant, the demand for a more secure and dependable internet increases, driving the need to find better performing and more secure alternatives to the incumbent HTTP/2 and TCP protocols. HTTP/3 is the newest evolution of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, and QUIC is the always-encrypted transport protocol underneath it.
Through HTTP/3 and QUIC, Fastly customers can provide a better digital experience for their end-users, ensuring confidential and secure connections. Jana Iyengar, Distinguished Engineer, Fastly explained,
“Now more than ever before, the internet has become an essential part of our lives, making lower-than-average internet performance an even greater systematic disadvantage for our end users. QUIC has the potential to not only provide safer digital experiences but faster and more efficient ones. We believe that QUIC will be a game-changer for people all over the world, especially for users who aren’t well-served by the current internet.”
What does QUIC provide?
Fastly’s support for these new standards allows the delivery of even better and faster digital experiences to its global customers. Fastly’s QUIC support provides:
- Faster web pages: HTTP/3 and QUIC minimize head-of-line blocking and reduce handshake latency, significantly reducing page load time.
- Better streaming: In addition, QUIC also improves network performance overall, significantly reducing start-up time and rebuffering of video and audio streams.
- Turn-key security: TLS 1.3 — the latest version of the Transport Layer Security protocol — is built directly into QUIC and secures headers and metadata from third parties, allowing more private, trustworthy connections than ever before.
- Seamless integration: Because QUIC runs in userspace, it integrates seamlessly with Fastly’s tooling, tracing, and logging infrastructure, making it easier for Fastly developers to run experiments and initiate rapid deployment and evolution of sites and apps.