{"id":3364,"date":"2016-05-25T14:45:00","date_gmt":"2016-05-25T14:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.dream.press\/?post_type=announcement&#038;p=3364"},"modified":"2025-05-06T19:01:21","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T19:01:21","slug":"modernizing-the-web-http-2-now-available-for-vps-and-dedicated-servers","status":"publish","type":"announcement","link":"https:\/\/news.dream.press\/news\/announcements\/modernizing-the-web-http-2-now-available-for-vps-and-dedicated-servers\/","title":{"rendered":"Modernizing the Web: HTTP\/2 Now Available for VPS and Dedicated Servers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Internet can be a bit of a dichotomy with respect to how it evolves. New technologies seem to pop up, grow, and expand almost on a daily basis, yet the underlying protocol that powers the web as we know it saw (until recently) almost no meaningful growth for nearly 15 years. The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) was originally designed by Tim Berners-Lee in the late 1980s, and the last significant rework of the protocol was done in 1999 (standardized as an&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/tools.ietf.org\/html\/rfc2616\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">RFC<\/a>&nbsp;that was released when I was in second grade). Last year, a major rework of HTTP was finalized in the form of HTTP\/2, a major upgrade to the underlying backbone of the web as we know it today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Why Update HTTP?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The developers of the HTTP\/2 spec have provided an excellent summary as to why and how HTTP was improved in the latest protocol spec. In short, HTTP\/1.1 was designed for a different time, when web pages were smaller, simpler, and cheaper to send across the wire. The explosive growth of the web in the last decade has seen a paradigm shift in how site and applications are designed and deployed. Websites and web applications use larger, more complex media assets, and serve more content than ever\u2014and there\u2019s no sign of this slowing down. The workarounds put in place by developers and engineers to get around some of the inherent limitations of HTTP\/1.1 (like request pipelining, domain sharding, etc.) were hacks and bandaids that were never addressed at a fundamental level, and stood largely in contrast to some of the design features of TCP, the underlying communication protocol that HTTP lives on. HTTP\/2 was designed to take into account the nature of the modern web, providing an efficient standard for modern servers and clients to communicate over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>HTTP\/2 brings a number of new features to the table, including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>A binary protocol, making it more compact to ship over the wire<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Fully multiplexed, parallel connections allow for faster, more efficient data transfer<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Server push functionality, allow web designers to build sites that proactively send assets that will be needed by a web page<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<div class=\"article-cta-shared article-cta-small\">\n\t<div class=\"tr-img-wrap-outer jsLoading\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"js-img-lazy \" src=\"https:\/\/www.dreamhost.com\/news\/wp-content\/themes\/dhtheme2023\/assets\/img\/lazy-loading-transparent.webp\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.dreamhost.com\/news\/wp-content\/themes\/dhtheme2023\/assets\/img\/article-small-ad-cta-placeholder.jpg\"  alt=\"Ad background image\" \/><\/div>\n\n\t<a href='https:\/\/www.dreamhost.com\/hosting\/vps\/' class='link-top'>\n\t\t<span>VPS Plans<\/span>\n\t\t<svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" viewBox=\"0 0 384 512\" width=\"15\"><path d=\"M342.6 233.4c12.5 12.5 12.5 32.8 0 45.3l-192 192c-12.5 12.5-32.8 12.5-45.3 0s-12.5-32.8 0-45.3L274.7 256 105.4 86.6c-12.5-12.5-12.5-32.8 0-45.3s32.8-12.5 45.3 0l192 192z\"\/><\/svg>\n\t<\/a>\n\n\t<div class=\"content-btm\">\n\t\t<h2 class=\"h2--md\">\n\t\t\tWe Know You&#8217;ve Got Lots of VPS Options\n\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t<p class=\"p--md\">\n\t\t\tHere\u2019s how DreamHost\u2019s VPS offering stands apart: 24\/7 customer support, an intuitive panel, scalable RAM, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited hosting domains, and SSD storage.\n\t\t<\/p>\n\n\t\t        <a\n            href=\"https:\/\/www.dreamhost.com\/hosting\/vps\/\"\n                        class=\"btn btn--white-outline btn--sm btn--round\"\n                        >\n            Choose Your VPS Plan        <\/a>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Industry Adoption<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Shiny features and well-designed protocols are all well and good, but they\u2019re worthless without actually being used. After finalization in mid-2015, the HTTP\/2 protocol soon saw early adoption from service providers like Akamai, Google, and Facebook, open-source HTTP servers like Nginx, and browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and even Internet Explorer (shocker, I know). According to researchers tracking the&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/isthewebhttp2yet.com\/measurements\/adoption.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">adoption rate of HTTP\/2<\/a>, nearly 200,000 sites from the Alexa list of top one million websites announce support for HTTP\/2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Related:<\/strong>&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dreamhost.com\/blog\/best-wordpress-security-plugins\/\">13 of the Best Security Plugins to Keep Your WordPress Site Safe<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Securing HTTP\/2<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>As the successor to the SPDY protocol, many early adopters expected HTTP\/2 to require a TLS connection, just as its predecessor did. Ultimately it was decided by the protocol\u2019s designers that secure connections would not be required; however, that hasn\u2019t prevent browser developers to require encryption. Currently no browser implementations support plaintext HTTP\/2 connections (also known as h2c).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>HTTP\/2 servers use one of two negotiation protocols to announce their support via TLS connections: NPN and ALPN. NPN is an older, less-efficient negotiation protocol, while ALPN is newer, faster, and has seen much less adoption due to its exclusion from older OpenSSL builds. Interestingly, Google has announced plans for Chrome to drop support for NPN in exclusive favor of ALPN, which&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/ma.ttias.be\/day-google-chrome-disables-http2-nearly-everyone-may-31st-2016\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">could leave many users in the HTTP\/2 dark<\/a>&nbsp;while legacy OpenSSL packages still float around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>HTTP\/2 at DreamHost<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>As a provider dedicated to embracing open source projects, we\u2019ve excitedly decided to push forward with adoption of HTTP\/2. Starting this week, domains hosted on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dreamhost.com\/hosting\/vps\/\">VPS<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dreamhost.com\/hosting\/dedicated\/\">dedicated servers<\/a> powered by Nginx can now take full advantage of the HTTP\/2 protocol. HTTP\/2 support in Nginx is designed to work seamlessly alongside existing HTTP\/1.1 connections, albeit only for HTTPS sites. Other existing features provided by our Nginx services, including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dreamhost.com\/blog\/introducing-extra-web-security-for-nginx-services\/\">extra web security and Lua support<\/a> via OpenResty, will also continue to work transparently under HTTP\/2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Additionally, DreamHost-powered HTTP\/2 servers are fully capable of supporting both NPN and ALPN negotiations, meaning Chrome\u2019s impending cutoff for NPN won\u2019t result in connection errors on bleeding-edge browsers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adding HTTP\/2 support to your Nginx\/HTTPS domain is as simple as activating a checkbox.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/help.dreamhost.com\/hc\/en-us\/articles\/219377648-HTTP-2-overview\">View the Knowledge Base article<\/a>&nbsp;for further details and instructions on how to activate this service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"529\" height=\"48\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dreamhost.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-05-24-at-5.54.26-PM.png\" alt=\"HTTP\/2 DreamHost Control Panel\" class=\"wp-image-3374\" srcset=\"https:\/\/news.dream.press\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-05-24-at-5.54.26-PM.png 529w, https:\/\/news.dream.press\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-05-24-at-5.54.26-PM-300x27.png 300w, https:\/\/news.dream.press\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-05-24-at-5.54.26-PM-96x9.png 96w, https:\/\/news.dream.press\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-05-24-at-5.54.26-PM-192x17.png 192w, https:\/\/news.dream.press\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-05-24-at-5.54.26-PM-512x46.png 512w, https:\/\/news.dream.press\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Screen-Shot-2016-05-24-at-5.54.26-PM-460x42.png 460w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 529px) 100vw, 529px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>And for the extra-curious, there are a number of excellent resources about HTTP\/2 that delve much deeper into the nitty gritty:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/http2.github.io\/faq\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The HTTP\/2 FAQ<\/a>&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/tools.ietf.org\/html\/rfc7540\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The HTTP\/2 RFC<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/caniuse.com\/#feat=http2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">HTTP\/2 Adoption Matrix<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>So what are you waiting for? Check that HTTP\/2 box and take your domain to the next level today!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>If you have any questions, leave a comment below, tweet us <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DreamHostCare\">@DreamHostCare<\/a> on Twitter, or <a href=\"https:\/\/panel.dreamhost.com\/index.cgi?tree=support.msg&amp;\">hit up our support team<\/a>!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Feature image source: http2.akamai.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Internet can be a bit of a dichotomy with respect to how it evolves. New technologies seem to pop up, grow, and expand almost on a daily basis, yet the underlying protocol that powers the web as we know it saw (until recently) almost no meaningful growth for nearly 15 years. The Hypertext Transfer [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":3365,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3364","announcement","type-announcement","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Modernizing the Web: HTTP\/2 Now Available for VPS and Dedicated Servers - Website Guides, Tips &amp; Knowledge<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.dream.press\/news\/announcements\/modernizing-the-web-http-2-now-available-for-vps-and-dedicated-servers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Modernizing the Web: HTTP\/2 Now Available for VPS and Dedicated Servers - Website Guides, Tips &amp; Knowledge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Internet can be a bit of a dichotomy with respect to how it evolves. 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The Hypertext Transfer [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.dreamhost.com\/news\/announcements\/modernizing-the-web-http-2-now-available-for-vps-and-dedicated-servers\/","og_site_name":"DreamHost","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/DreamHost\/","article_modified_time":"2025-05-06T19:01:21+00:00","og_image":[{"width":631,"height":121,"url":"https:\/\/www.dreamhost.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/HTTP2-graphic.png","type":"image\/png"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_site":"@dreamhost","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/news.dream.press\/news\/announcements\/modernizing-the-web-http-2-now-available-for-vps-and-dedicated-servers\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/news.dream.press\/news\/announcements\/modernizing-the-web-http-2-now-available-for-vps-and-dedicated-servers\/"},"author":{"name":"Robert Paprocki","@id":"https:\/\/news.dream.press\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/0a450fd9bb68c27a97a3d2f6948075fb"},"headline":"Modernizing the Web: HTTP\/2 Now Available for VPS and Dedicated Servers","datePublished":"2016-05-25T14:45:00+00:00","dateModified":"2025-05-06T19:01:21+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/news.dream.press\/news\/announcements\/modernizing-the-web-http-2-now-available-for-vps-and-dedicated-servers\/"},"wordCount":832,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/news.dream.press\/news\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/news.dream.press\/news\/announcements\/modernizing-the-web-http-2-now-available-for-vps-and-dedicated-servers\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/news.dream.press\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/HTTP2-graphic.png","inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/news.dream.press\/news\/announcements\/modernizing-the-web-http-2-now-available-for-vps-and-dedicated-servers\/","url":"https:\/\/news.dream.press\/news\/announcements\/modernizing-the-web-http-2-now-available-for-vps-and-dedicated-servers\/","name":"Modernizing the Web: HTTP\/2 Now Available for VPS and Dedicated Servers - 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