Understanding the TCP Handshake: A Hidden Performance Bottleneck
Every time your application initiates a connection to a web server – whether for web scraping, botting, or an API call – it incurs a small but significant cost known as the TCP handshake. This three-way handshake (SYN, SYN-ACK, ACK) is essential for establishing a reliable connection, but it's also a source of latency and resource consumption. Think of it as a mandatory