HTTP 2.0 is the successor to the HTTP 1.1 protocol, and this new version of the protocol addresses some limitations and drawbacks of the previous one. HTTP 2.0 improves performance in several ways and provides capabilities such as request/response multiplexing in a single TCP connection, sending of responses in a server push, flow control, and request prioritization, among others. Java provides the java.net.HttpURLConnection utility that can be used to establish a nonsecure HTTP 1.1 connection. However, the API was considered difficult to maintain, an issue which was further complicated by the need to support HTTP 2.0 and, so, an entirely new client API was introduced in order to establish a connection via the HTTP 2.0 or the web socket protocols. The HTTP 2.0 client, along with the capabilities it provides, will be covered in Chapter 11, New Tools and Tool Enhancements.