Which protocol is known for providing reliable data transfer over the Internet?

TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) is known for providing reliable data transfer over the Internet due to its connection-oriented nature. When a TCP connection is established between two devices, it ensures that data packets are delivered in the correct order and without errors. TCP accomplishes this through mechanisms such as acknowledgments (ACKs), sequence numbers, and retransmission of lost packets. If a packet fails to arrive or is corrupted during transmission, TCP will detect this and resend the packet, thus maintaining the integrity and reliability of the communication.

Moreover, TCP includes flow control—preventing data overload on a receiver—and congestion control—managing the rate of data transmission based on network conditions. This makes TCP suitable for applications where data integrity and order are critical, such as in web browsing or file transfers.

Other protocols like UDP (User Datagram Protocol) do not provide such reliable mechanisms, opting instead for speed and efficiency with less overhead. While protocols like HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) and FTP (File Transfer Protocol) can operate on top of TCP for web traffic and file transfers respectively, they themselves rely on TCP to ensure that the data being transmitted is reliable.