Can't strip extra characters from Data

[Canflyguy]

I'm new at Python with a Fortran, Basic and Visual Basic background, but I've managed to get a running program, but can't strip off the extra information.
This is the code:

import socket, sys

host = ''               
port = 65432
socksize = 19

s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
s.bind((host, port))
print("Server started on port: %s" % port)
s.listen(1)
print("Now listening...n")


while True:
    conn, addr = s.accept()
    data = conn.recv(socksize)
    string = data.strip('/') #this line doesn't work
    if not data:             #it gives me: TypeError: a bytes-like object is required, not 'str'
        x=1
    else:
        print(data)
        print(string)

It gets the data when I don't have the string & print(string) lines in there, but I was trying to strip off the b'GET / on the beginning of the data and the ' on the end. Being new to Python, does it always return the b'' when there is no data coming? Also once you write a program in Python, can it be compiled in Python so that it's statements are not visible? That's kind of why I put the dummy statement x=1 when there was no data in order to not have a running string of b'' when there is no data being received.
Thanks!