Full Form of URL
| Acronym |
Full-Form |
| URL |
Uniform Resource Locator |
What is URL
The full form of the URL is Uniform Resource Locator. A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is a URI and established naming convention for Internet and intranet-accessible documents. The Uniform Resource Locator (URL) enables a computer to locate and access a website hosted on a different computer on the Internet. A URL example is https://www.studytonight.com/.
A URL is often located in the address bar or omnibox at the top of the browser window. On desktop PCs and laptops, unless the browser is in fullscreen mode, the URL is always visible. In the majority of mobile and tablet browsers, the URL-containing address bar disappears as you scroll down, leaving only the domain visible. If the address bar is not visible, scroll the page upwards. When only the domain is displayed, touching the address bar displays the complete address.
Parts of a URL
The following information is contained in every URL:
- The protocol or scheme name.
- Port number comes after the colon.
- A host is called a domain or a literal IP address.
- The full path of the resource.
- A colon, two slashes.
You will find the URL of a web page on the top of the page in the address bar. This is what a typical URL looks like:
http://www.studytonight.com/full-form
The above URL contains:
- protocol: http
- host or domain: www.studytonight.com
- Path of the resource: /full-form
1). http:// or https://
HTTP refers to the Hypertext Transfer Protocol. It informs the browser the protocol it will use to access the specified domain's information. "HTTPS" is an abbreviation for "Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure" and indicates that data communicated over HTTP is encrypted and secure. The colon (:) and two forward slashes (//) follow HTTP or HTTPS to separate the protocol from the remainder of the URL.
2). www.
Next, "www" represents the World Wide Web and is used to differentiate the content. This element of the URL is optional and can be omitted numerous times. For example, entering "http://studytonight.com" will continue to lead to the study tonight website. The address section may also represent a subdomain, which is a significant subpage.
Note: You can also type the URL in the address bar of your browser. If the server is not valid, the browser may display a "Server not found" error and the browser may display a "404 error" if the path of the URL is incorrect. There should be no spaces in the URL and forward slashes are used to represent different directories. Thus, underscores and dashes are used to separate the words of a web address.
What is URI
The full form of URI is Uniform Resource Identifier which is a generic term that includes all the names and addresses that show objects on the World Wide Web. Generally, this is a sequence of characters that identifies a logical resource or the name and location of a file or resource in a uniform format.
There can be two types of URI:
- Uniform Resource Names (URNs)
- Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
Thus the resources can be accessed by other computers across a network or over the World Wide Web.
URI vs URL
| URI |
URL |
- URI's full form is Uniform Resource Identifier.
|
- URL's full form is Uniform Resource Locator.
|
- There are two subsets of URI: URN, which tells the name, and URL, which tells the location.
|
- URL tells the location of the resource and is a subset of URI.
|
- All URIs are not URLs as they can tell both, the location and the name.
|
- As every URL can only contain the location, all URLs are URIs.
|
- By using the name or location of the resource, the URI aims to identify it and differentiate the resource from other resources.
|
- The main function of the URL is to find the location or address of a resource on the web.
|
- ISBN 0-486-35557-4 can be an example of a URI.
|
- https://www.studytonight.com is an example of a URL.
|
- URI is mostly used in XML and tag library files like XSTL and JSTL to identify the binaries and resources.
|
- A URL is mainly used to search the webpages on the internet.
|
- The URI scheme can be specification, protocol, designation, or something else.
|
- URL is scheme is generally a protocol such as HTTPS, HTTP, FTP, etc.
|
HTTP vs HTTPS
Now let's find out the differences between HTTP and HTTPS:
| HTTP |
HTTPS |
- HTTP full form is Hypertext Transfer Protocol.
|
- HTTPS full form is Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure.
|
- In the address bar, it is written as http://.
|
- In the address bar, it is written as https://.
|
- Data is transmitted by HTTP over port number 80.
|
- By HTTPS, the data is transmitted over port number 443.
|
- As the plain text is sent, which can be accessible by the hackers, this is unsecured.
|
- As it sends encrypted data, which can be tough for hackers to decrypt, it is a lot more secure.
|
- HTTP is mostly used on websites providing information, like blog writing.
|
- HTTPS is used by websites that require to transmit the bank account details or credit card numbers as it is very secure.
|
- HTTP is an application layer protocol.
|
- HTTPS is a transport layer protocol.
|
|
|
- HTTPS uses SSL that provides the encryption of the data.
|
- HTTP websites are not given preference by Google.
|
- HTTPS websites are given preference by Google.
|
- The loading speed of the page is fast.
|
- Because of the additional security feature, the loading speed of HTTPS sites is slower than that of HTTP websites.
|
