A term that generally refers to application-layer TCP/IP protocols commonly used over the Internet.
The following table shows many of the standard Internet protocols in use today. Some of these protocols, such as Gopher, are rapidly waning in popularity.
To access a protocol such as Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) with a Web browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, you would use a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) beginning with http://.
| Protocol | Protocol Name | Description |
| http | Hypertext Transfer Protocol | Used for Web pages that contain text, graphics, sound, and other digital information stored on a Web server on the World Wide Web |
| ftp | File Transfer Protocol | Transfers files between two computers over the Internet |
| gopher | Gopher protocol | Displays information stored on a network of Gopher servers |
| wais | WAIS protocol | Used for accessing a Wide Area Information Servers database |
| file | File protocol | Opens a file on a local hard disk or a network share |
| https | Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol | Establishes an encrypted HTTP connection using the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol |
| mailto | MailTo protocol | Starts a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) e-mail program to send a message to the specified Internet e-mail address |
| news | News protocol | Opens a Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) newsreader and the specified Usenet newsgroup |
| nntp | Network News Transfer Protocol | Performs the same function as the News protocol |
| mid | Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) protocol | Plays MIDI sequencer files if the computer has a sound card |
| telnet | Telnet protocol | Starts a Telnet terminal emulation program |
| rlogin | Rlogin protocol | Starts an Rlogin terminal emulation program |
| tn3270 | TN3270 protocol | Starts a TN3270 terminal emulation program |
| pnm | RealAudio protocol | Plays RealAudio streaming audio from a RealAudio server |
| mms | Microsoft Media Server (MMS) protocol | Plays .asf streams from a Microsoft NetShow server |