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Hi can somebody please explain what are the URL's that we can see at Google+ HTML source code that look like <img src="//lh5.googleusercontent.com/--kKi9nRc78s/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAAC8/w1PSeKZtt7I/photo.jpg?sz=48" alt="" />

Is it a shortcut for http:// ?

What browsers understand it in this case, where can I find more information on this, please ?

Thanks in advance!

Denis
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  • possible duplicate of [What is the effect of starting a url with "//", and leaving out "http:"](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8343942/what-is-the-effect-of-starting-a-url-with-and-leaving-out-http) – unor Jan 22 '14 at 21:05

1 Answers1

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It's a scheme-relative URL. You see this often on websites/pages which can be served over both http and https. If the image pointed to a http resource and the page itself was served over https, you would otherwise see an annoying browser warning that unsecured content is been served, something like this:

enter image description here

BalusC
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