Illinois Technology Specialist Practice Exam 2026 - Free Technology Specialist Practice Questions and Study Guide

HTTP, which stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol, primarily uses Port 80 for transmitting web pages. This port is the default network port that web servers listen to for requests made by clients, such as web browsers. When you enter a website's URL in a browser, the browser communicates with the server via HTTP over Port 80 to retrieve the web page data.

Port 21 is used for FTP (File Transfer Protocol), which is used for file transfers rather than web page delivery. Port 25 is associated with SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), which is used for sending email. Port 443 is utilized for HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure), which is the secure version of HTTP and operates over encrypted connections. Thus, the use of Port 80 is fundamental in the basic and unencrypted transmission of web content in the HTTP protocol.