When assessing networking protocols, we should pay attention to at least:
- Simplicity of implementation
- Resource use (e.g. how much bandwidth is used compared to the actual amount of transferred information)
- Offline tolerance (Does it depend on constant connectivity? How well does it work in a local network that has no world connectivity?)
- Decentralization (How well does it tolerate small servers/peers that are not always online? Does the design encourage large centralized servers?)
Some protocols:
- WWW
- HTTP/HTML
- Gopher
- Gemini
- Offline-tolerant messaging protocols
- Usenet
- Fidonet
- Offline-intolerant messaging protocols
- IRC
- XMPP
- ActivityPub
- Peer-to-peer
- BitTorrent
- IPFS
- Encryption
- SSL
- Remote access
- ssh
- mosh
- VNC
- X11
- Wired device-to-device communication
- USB
- RS232
- Hayes command set
- Character terminal connections
- ANSI X3.64
- RTTY
- Packet networking
- Ethernet
- IP
- Wireless networking
- Wi-Fi
- GSM and its successors (xG)
- AX.25