Does an HTTP gateway actually allow you to make peer-to-peer IPFS connections, or does the actual content end up being routed through the gateway? And if so, wo

Does an HTTP gateway actually allow you to make peer-to-peer IPFS connections, or does the actual content end up being routed through the gateway? And if so, wouldn't that be equivalent to a traditional CDN from the perspective of a client? It sounds like we'd need to have browsers implement IPFS protocol support directly for this to be a feasible alternative to centralized CDNs.