Frontend Handbook

Browser & Web Platform

Short handbooks on what the browser and the network do for every page: the main concepts, what matters most, and live demos that run in your own browser.

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Networking
How a request reaches the server and back: DNS, TCP, TLS, HTTP messages and caching, HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/3, and what HTTPS protects, each with a live demo.
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Origins, DNS and CORS
The parts of a URL, how DNS finds a host, what an origin and a site are, and how CORS lets a server share responses across origins, each with a live demo.
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How the browser renders a page
Parsing into the DOM and CSSOM, what blocks parsing and rendering, layout, paint and composite, and layout thrashing, each with a live demo.