How the web talks

A browser asks, a server answers. Each ask is a request and each answer is a response.

What is inside

• a method such as GET or POST
• a path such as /login
• headers, small labels like Cookie and User-Agent
• sometimes a body, for example a submitted form

The response has a status code (200 fine, 404 missing, 500 server problem), headers and a body.

Try it

Open any site, press F12, open the Network tab and reload. Click the first row and read the request headers and the response headers. Find the Set-Cookie header on a site where you sign in.