Re:Ask HN: It Was Better with Www
by valrix on Tuesday January 09, 2024 @01:56PM
(#38930299)
1. If the website is correctly using HSTS, the new HTTPS DNS record, or redirecting from HTTP to HTTPS manually with a 301 then you don't even need to specify a protocol. Just put in domain.TLD and go.
2. ???
3. Yes, it's the protocol definition and that's what it means, correct.
4. Without the protocol, it's not a URL. The specification of a valid URL can be read here https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1738 where it points out that a "scheme" (the protocol, such as "http" or "http" or "ftp") is required.
The problem is your examples assume you're talking about ONLY a web server, when you can put ftp:// or ssh:// or even gopher:// in front of ycombinator.com and the connection process will be vastly different, as they are different schemes of communication. Websites will always require a valid protocol before the domain because otherwise there's no way to know for sure where the link is meant to go.
The problem is your examples assume you're talking about ONLY a web server, when you can put ftp:// or ssh:// or even gopher:// in front of ycombinator.com and the connection process will be vastly different, as they are different schemes of communication. Websites will always require a valid protocol before the domain because otherwise there's no way to know for sure where the link is meant to go.