About HTML5 Web Sockets

The HTML5 Web Sockets specification defines an API that enables web pages to use the Web Sockets protocol for two-way communication with a remote host. It introduces the WebSocket interface and defines a full-duplex communication channel that operates through a single socket over the Web. HTML5 Web Sockets provide an enormous reduction in unnecessary network traffic and latency compared to the unscalable polling and long-polling solutions that were used to simulate a full-duplex connection by maintaining two connections.

HTML5 Web Sockets account for network hazards such as proxies and firewalls, making streaming possible over any connection, and with the ability to support upstream and downstream communications over a single connection, HTML5 Web Sockets-based applications place less burden on servers, allowing existing machines to support more concurrent connections. The following figure shows a basic WebSocket-based architecture in which browsers use a WebSocket connection for full-duplex, direct communication with remote hosts.