Webform Transfer Protocol

Webform Transfer Protocol (WFTP) is an application layer protocol that makes up most of the internet in human society. It first rose to popularity during the early PDA era, when restrictions in bandwidth and computing power to conform to early 2G networks required a simple and lightweight solution. This solution stuck as modern computers evolved, as a robust protocol for the majority of the Internet. For applications with richer content, such as online gaming, other protocols evolved that allowed higher bandwidth networks to be utilised.

WFTP is not encrypted (there is no concept of WFTPS). Instead, as is standard with the modern internet, Negotiated P2P IPsec (NPI) connections are established between the customer and the web host's networks, which then secure the connection on the IPv6 address level.

Internals

WFTP utilises an XML-based markup language known as WFML, but as opposed to real-world standards such as HTML, WFTP is a much simpler protocol with no concept of stylesheets. Instead, it acts as an input for a WFTP client/browser's own UI engine, effectively meaning a WFTP page looks completely different on each client. WFTP does include limited abilities for specific style attributes, such as colour schemes, to be attached to markup; however, this is a "suggestion" to the client and is not necessarily forwarded. This trades design flexibility for accessibility, user customisation, and ease of rendering, and means that all webpages will render nearly the same no matter what the hardware is, even on a text terminal.

The protocol also does not include a standard client-side scripting system, and page generation and form response is usually performed server-side. However, there is a restricted client-side scripting standard known as EdgeScript that allows for lighter client-side computations to be performed in order to conserve bandwidth. For security reasons, EdgeScript is a compiled language that does not allow JIT, transmitted as bytecode, is strictly limited in system resources, and is isolated from all hardware components of the system. Clients are recommended, but not required, to implement support for EdgeScript, and clients can report to the server they do not support the EdgeScript capability to have the server perform the computation task the script would have done at the cost of additional bandwidth.