Back to All Blogs1 min read15 Sept 2026
Web Fundamentals
What Happens When You Type a URL Into Your Browser
“Follow a web request through DNS, TLS, HTTP, backend processing and rendering.”
What Happens When You Type a URL Into Your Browser
Consider:
https://app.example.com/dashboard1. Parse the URL
scheme → https
hostname → app.example.com
path → /dashboard2. DNS Resolution
The hostname resolves to an IP address.
3. Establish a Connection
For HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2, TCP is commonly established. HTTPS also requires TLS.
4. HTTP Request
GET /dashboard HTTP/1.1
Host: app.example.com
Accept: text/html
Cookie: session=...Generating diagram...
5. Backend Processing
The backend may validate a session, authorize the user, query PostgreSQL, check Redis or call another service.
6. Browser Rendering
The browser processes HTML and CSS, executes JavaScript, calculates layout and paints the screen.
Note
“The website is slow” can mean DNS, networking, server processing, database latency, JavaScript execution or rendering.
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