Quick UDP Internet Connections (QUIC) was introduced by Google in 2012. It is a protocol similar to the TCP, Transport Layer Security (TLS), and HTTP/2 protocols, but it is all transmitted over UDP. This means that a lot of the overhead that is built into TCP has been removed and replaced with a new method of sending data. On top of this, since TLS is built into the protocol, it means that the overhead of adding security to an already defined protocol has been removed.

QUIC is currently used by Google for things such as YouTube. While QUIC never gained mass appeal, it helped spawn the group that would create the HTTP/3 standard committee and helped guide the committee to utilize UDP as the base layer for the protocol. It also showcased how security can be built into the protocol and has lead HTTP/3 to have it built into it.

While HTTP/3 has not been added to Node.js, there are some packages that implement the QUIC protocol.