May
19

HTTP Header Analyzer – Inspect Web Response Headers for Security and Performance

HTTP Header Analyzer helps you inspect the hidden metadata of a website's response. It reveals security headers, caching policies, server information, and more—crucial for developers, penetration testers, and performance analysts.

What Is an HTTP Header Analyzer?

An HTTP Header Analyzer is a tool that lets you see the response headers a website sends to your browser. Headers are part of every HTTP response and contain important technical details like:

  • Server identity
  • Cache rules
  • Security features
  • Content type
  • Cookie policies
  • Redirects

While they aren’t shown to users, headers are key to how websites work—and how secure they are.

🔍 What Can You Discover?

  1. Security Headers
    Check if a site uses:
    • Content-Security-Policy
    • X-Content-Type-Options
    • Strict-Transport-Security
    • X-Frame-Options
  2. Caching & CDN Info
    See if assets are cached (Cache-Control, Expires) and served from a CDN (Via, CF-*, Fastly-* headers).
  3. Redirect Chains
    Follow 301 or 302 redirects and where they go.
  4. Cookie Behavior
    Validate Set-Cookie values and attributes like Secure and HttpOnly.
  5. Server Disclosure
    Detect if the site reveals its backend tech (e.g., Server: nginx or X-Powered-By: PHP/8.2).

🛡 Why It Matters in Cybersecurity

  • Exposed headers = fingerprinting risk
  • Missing headers = potential exploits
  • Overexposed cookies = session hijack targets
  • Improper redirects = phishing setups
  • Open CORS or weak CSP = XSS playgrounds

🧠 Example Output

Header NameSample ValueServer | nginx
X-Frame-Options | SAMEORIGIN
Content-Security-Policy | default-src 'self';
Set-Cookie | sessionid=xyz; HttpOnly; Secure
Location (Redirect) | https://www.example.com/home


💡 Dev Tip

Use this tool to audit your own website and see what you're exposing unintentionally. It’s also great for penetration testing and competitor analysis.

🧩 Final Thoughts

Your website might be saying more than you think—hidden in its headers. An HTTP Header Analyzer gives you deep visibility into how a web server communicates, secures, and handles requests. Use it for hardening, debugging, or simply staying ahead.

Read the headers. Fix the risks. Strengthen your stack.

Contact

Missing something?

Feel free to request missing tools or give some feedback using our contact form.

Contact Us