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Oblivious HTTP (OHTTP) is an IETF protocol that separates a supported HTTP request from the network identity that sent it. A client encrypts a binary HTTP message to a gateway, sends it through an independent relay, and receives the response by the reverse path. The relay can see the client connection but not the request contents; the gateway can read and process the request but should see the relay’s connection rather than the client’s IP address.
That is a narrower guarantee than “anonymous browsing.” OHTTP does not hide a request from the gateway or the destination service, does not protect against traffic analysis, and cannot make cookies, login credentials, or other application state unlinkable. It works only when a client and service deliberately support the protocol and use separate relay and gateway operators.
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What OHTTP is designed to separate
Normal HTTPS protects data in transit, but the endpoint handling a request can often associate its contents with the client connection that delivered them. OHTTP introduces two cooperating network roles so that no single role should have both pieces of information:
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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute- Oblivious relay: accepts the client’s HTTPS connection, sees its network address and routing metadata, and forwards an opaque payload.
- Oblivious gateway: receives the relay’s connection, decrypts the HTTP message, and forwards the request to the target service.
- Target service: processes the request that the gateway sends. It is not automatically prevented from identifying a user through the request itself or through application state.
The privacy objective depends on the relay and gateway being operated independently. RFC 9458, the Standards Track specification published in January 2024, states: “To achieve the stated privacy goals, the Oblivious Relay Resource cannot be operated by the same entity as the Oblivious Gateway Resource.” If one organization controls both roles, it can combine the client connection record with the decrypted request and recover the association OHTTP is intended to break.
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How an OHTTP request travels
OHTTP encapsulates an HTTP message rather than acting as a general-purpose browser tunnel. The client and service must agree on a gateway configuration and a relay that supports the protocol.
- Create the inner request. The client builds the HTTP request for a particular target and encodes it as a binary HTTP message. The message can contain a method, path, headers and body, subject to the service’s OHTTP profile.
- Encrypt for the gateway. Using HPKE (Hybrid Public Key Encryption) and the gateway’s public-key configuration, the client encapsulates the binary message. The relay can transport the result but cannot decrypt the inner HTTP request.
- Connect to the relay. The client sends the encapsulated request to the relay over HTTPS. The relay learns the client’s network address because it terminates that transport connection, along with routing information needed to select the associated gateway.
- Forward the opaque payload. The relay sends the encapsulated message to the gateway over a separate HTTPS connection. It forwards bytes and protocol metadata, not plaintext request contents.
- Decrypt and forward. The gateway uses its private key to recover the binary HTTP message, reconstructs the request, and sends it to the target service. The target sees a request arriving from the gateway’s connection.
- Return the response. The gateway encapsulates the target’s response for the client, sends it back through the relay, and the relay forwards it to the client. The client removes the outer encapsulation and processes the HTTP response.
Both HTTPS legs matter. Encryption between client and relay and between relay and gateway prevents a network observer from simply reading or correlating transport data that OHTTP expects to be unlinkable. OHTTP itself does not turn an untrusted or incorrectly configured transport into a private one.
Who can see what?
| Party | Normally visible | Normally hidden by OHTTP |
|---|---|---|
| Client-to-relay network path | That a client is connecting to the relay, plus transport metadata | The plaintext HTTP request and response contents |
| Relay | Client network address, timing, packet sizes and the gateway routing choice | The encrypted inner HTTP message |
| Gateway | The decrypted request, its headers and body, and the relay’s connection | The client’s direct network address, when the relay and gateway are independently operated and correctly configured |
| Target service | The request as forwarded by the gateway and any identifying data included in it | The client’s direct connection address, unless the application supplies identifying information or another path exposes it |
This division is the central privacy property: the relay has identity-related network information without request plaintext, while the gateway has plaintext without a direct client connection. The gateway still sees everything it must see to answer the request. OHTTP is therefore not end-to-end secrecy from the service processing the data.
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What privacy protection OHTTP can provide
Separating an IP address from request contents
With independent operators, the relay can log the client connection while the gateway handles the decrypted request. Neither role should be able to create the complete “this IP made this request” record on its own. This is useful for one-shot, privacy-sensitive service calls in which the application does not need a continuing identity.
Reducing trust in a single intermediary
A conventional intermediary may be able to observe both who connected and what was requested. OHTTP divides those observations between two resources. The arrangement does not require the relay to be trusted with plaintext or the gateway to be trusted with direct client addressing, but it does require both resources to follow the protocol and keep their operational data separate.
Keeping the relay from reading application data
HPKE encryption is applied before the request reaches the relay. A relay can route and forward the encapsulated object, but it is not given the key needed to inspect the inner HTTP message. This protects content from the relay, not from the gateway or target.
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What OHTTP does not protect
It does not make arbitrary web browsing anonymous
OHTTP is a protocol for explicitly supported exchanges, not a drop-in replacement for a browser’s ordinary HTTP stack. A website cannot be made OHTTP-compatible merely by asking a user to enable a setting; the client, relay, gateway and service need a compatible design. Pages, scripts, images and APIs that do not use OHTTP continue to use their normal connections.
It does not hide the request from the gateway or target
The gateway must decrypt the message to forward it, and the target must receive usable request data to produce a response. A gateway or target can inspect paths, parameters, headers and bodies that the application permits. OHTTP separates network identity from contents; it does not encrypt data away from the service that operates on it.
Cookies and authentication can restore linkability
State carried in a cookie, bearer token, account identifier or distinctive application field can identify a user across requests. The gateway or target may not need an IP address if the request itself contains a stable identifier. OHTTP is best suited to requests that do not require cookies, login credentials or stateful continuity. If authentication is unavoidable, the application must assess whether the resulting identifier defeats the intended unlinkability.
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Traffic analysis remains outside the protocol’s claim
Timing, volume, packet sizes and connection patterns can be visible to a relay or network observer. RFC 9458 explicitly places traffic analysis outside OHTTP’s scope. The protocol should therefore be described as separating identity and content under deployment assumptions, not as eliminating observation or correlation of traffic patterns.
It does not authenticate the target for the client
OHTTP does not by itself prove that the endpoint ultimately receiving a request is the target the client intended. The client needs a separate mechanism to authorize a gateway for use with a particular target and to validate the relevant configuration. A deployment that distributes a gateway key without a trustworthy authorization process can undermine the security model.
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Relay metadata and unsafe forwarding can leak information
The relay necessarily learns connection metadata. RFC 9458 also warns that a relay should avoid forwarding unknown request fields that might contain identifying information. An implementation that copies arbitrary headers or extensions into the forwarded request can accidentally pass through data that links the message to its sender.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Requirements for a sound deployment
Organizations evaluating OHTTP should treat it as a coordinated service architecture rather than a single switch.
- Explicit client support: the client must know how to construct binary HTTP messages, obtain the gateway’s public-key configuration and send encapsulated requests.
- Compatible service support: the target must understand the request profile and response encapsulation expected by the client.
- Independent operators: relay and gateway administration should be separated so one entity cannot trivially join connection logs with decrypted requests.
- HTTPS on both hops: use HTTPS from client to relay and relay to gateway.
- Gateway authorization: define how a client determines that a gateway is permitted for the intended target.
- Careful field handling: forward only headers and metadata the service needs, and remove or reject fields that can carry direct identifiers.
- State minimization: design requests to work without cookies, account tokens or other persistent identifiers when unlinkability is a goal.
- Operational separation: access controls, logging and retention policies should prevent routine recombination of relay and gateway records.
Where OHTTP fits best
Good candidates
- Anonymous or pseudonymous measurement submissions where the service needs aggregate data rather than a user account.
- One-time lookups, configuration fetches or public-key requests that do not need cookies.
- Applications that can tolerate a relay and gateway managed by different organizations.
- Services willing to define a narrow request schema and reject unexpected identifying fields.
Poor candidates
- Interactive account sessions that depend on cookies or bearer authentication.
- General web browsing, where most subresources and scripts do not share the OHTTP path.
- Requests whose value depends on the service knowing a stable user identity.
- Deployments in which one company controls both relay and gateway or can freely merge their logs.
OHTTP compared with other routing approaches
The following comparison describes the privacy boundaries that normally matter; actual behavior depends on the specific implementation, logging policy and application protocol.
| Approach | Who commonly sees the client IP? | Who can read request contents? | State and traffic-analysis considerations | Special deployment needed? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OHTTP | Relay | Gateway and target; not the relay | Cookies, authentication and traffic patterns can link requests | Yes: compatible client, service, relay and gateway |
| Conventional forward proxy | Proxy | Proxy may read contents unless end-to-end encryption protects them; destination reads what it receives | Proxy can often observe timing and volume; application state still applies | Proxy service and client configuration |
| VPN tunnel | VPN operator at the tunnel endpoint | Usually encrypted in transit, but the destination and any terminating service can read its application data | Does not by itself remove cookies, account identifiers or traffic analysis | VPN service and client software |
| Tor-style multi-hop routing | No single relay is intended to see every identity and destination fact, but entry and exit observations can differ | Depends on end-to-end encryption and the endpoint service | State and traffic correlation remain concerns | Multi-hop network, compatible client and destination access |
OHTTP’s distinctive choice is not “more encryption everywhere.” It is a deliberate split: one role handles the client connection, another handles the decrypted HTTP exchange. That makes it attractive for narrowly defined, stateless requests, while a proxy or VPN may be simpler when the requirement is broader traffic routing rather than identity-content separation.
Current standards and deployment examples
RFC 9458 defines the OHTTP protocol, its relay and gateway resources, HPKE encapsulation, privacy goals and limitations. RFC 9540 defines discovery of oblivious services using DNS Service Binding records; its ohttp service parameter indicates access through an associated gateway. Discovery tells a compatible client how a service can be reached; it does not mean that every browser or website automatically uses OHTTP.
Cloudflare documents a managed Cloudflare OHTTP Relay, formerly called Privacy Gateway, together with implementation and getting-started material. It is an example of an organization offering relay infrastructure, not evidence of universal browser support or a guarantee that unrelated websites are protected. Mozilla also provides an accessible explanation of the client-relay-destination flow.
A practical decision checklist
Before adopting OHTTP, answer these questions:
- Does the client explicitly implement OHTTP and know which gateway key configuration to use?
- Does the target service accept the exact binary HTTP request and response profile?
- Are relay and gateway operators genuinely independent?
- Can the request work without cookies, login credentials or stable account identifiers?
- Are both transport hops protected with HTTPS?
- How will the client authorize a gateway for this target?
- Which headers and fields are allowed, and which could reveal identity?
- What relay and gateway logs are retained, and who can combine them?
- What traffic patterns remain visible, and does the application’s threat model require additional defenses?
If the answers are favorable, OHTTP can provide a precise privacy improvement: it makes it harder for either the relay or the gateway, acting alone, to connect a client network identity with the contents of a supported request. If the service depends on stateful accounts, broad browsing coverage or a single operator controlling both hops, OHTTP is not a complete anonymity solution.
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