What is Http Module and Http Handler?

HTTP Handler

HTTP Handler is the process which runs in response to a HTTP request. So whenever user requests a file it is processed by the handler based on the extension. So, custom http handlers are created when you need to special handling based on the file name extension. Let's consider an example to create RSS for a site. So, create a handler that generates RSS-formatted XML. Now bind the .rss extension to the custom handler.

HTTP Modules

HTTP Modules are plugged into the life cycle of a request. So when a request is processed it is passed through all the modules in the pipeline of the request. So generally http modules are used for:

Security: For authenticating a request before the request is handled.

Statistics and Logging: Since modules are called for every request they can be used for gathering statistics and for logging information.