DrupalCon Amsterdam 2019: QUIC and HTTP/3: Too Big to Fail?!
Channel: Drupal Association
Date: 2019-10-30

Robin Marx
Hasselt University, Diepenbeek, Belgium

There is a revolution coming to the web in the form of the new QUIC and HTTP/3 protocols. They promise many fantastic things, such as deep end-to-end encryption and, above all, much improved page loading performance compared to TCP and HTTP/2.

Sadly, these advancements come at the price of increased complexity, as QUIC aims to incorporate 30 years of web protocol knowledge into a single "Protocol to Rule Them All". There are also other challenges ahead for this new generation, such as network operators unwilling to allow the protocols to pass through their systems.

In this talk, I will explain the details of the new QUIC and HTTP/3 protocols: why they are needed, how they work behind the scenes, and how they are able to claim such impressive performance and security gains (spoiler: some of the claims are false!)

We then look at how the protocols might still fail to find sufficient (early) adopters and discuss the practical challenges you yourself might face when actually deploying these technical marvels on the modern web.

You will leave fully prepared to jump on the HTTP/3 bandwagon and lead your Drupal setup into 2020.