When I started learning about networking, one of the things that confused me at first was how devices actually talk to each other over the internet. That’s when I got introduced to internet protocols like TCP, IP, UDP, and HTTP. At first, all these acronyms felt overwhelming, but once I started seeing how they work together, it started to click.
For example, I learned that IP, or Internet Protocol, is like the address system. It helps devices find each other on a network. TCP, or Transmission Control Protocol, is like a delivery service that makes sure everything you send online gets to the right place in the correct order. UDP, or User Datagram Protocol, also sends data but doesn’t double-check everything, which makes it faster for things like video calls or online games. Then there’s HTTP, which is used for loading websites in your browser, and it runs on top of TCP.
Once I understood what each protocol does, I started noticing them in tools like Wireshark where you can actually see them in action. That made it easier to understand how data moves through a network.
My question is what do you think would happen if we didn’t have these protocols in place? How different would the internet be if devices couldn’t rely on rules like TCP or IP to guide their communication?
Looking forward to seeing how others think about the impact of these protocols.
