Comet: Server Push to Browser
In my Ajax session today at the Boise Code Camp I mentioned a new technique I'd heard about. It let's you send data to the browser, without a request from the browser. Someone has called this Comet, and here's an Ajaxian article about it. This is common in other applications, of course, things like instant messengers. But if this becomes widespread on the Web, we will see some pretty cool browser based apps. We'll have to keep security in mind though. I'm sure the shady folks will come up with lots of bad things to do, once they can send stuff to your browser without a request.
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Hey Guy, there is no way to send something to the browser before the browser has sent a request. A Comet connection is opened from the client (browser) and kept open to send data without the need for another request!
# Posted By Mone
| 4/28/07 11:06 AM
Yeah, that's a good point. I guess I didn't make that clear, but what I meant was that the server can talk to the browswer, with an open session, without the browser asking for data. With typical ajax, the server is just a responder. With Comet, the server can also be a requester, provided that a relationship of trust has already been established.
# Posted By Jacob Munson
| 4/28/07 12:29 PM
Security is a good point - however Comet works just aswell over HTTPS its basically as insecure as any other Ajax request since its implemented using the same underlying techniques - XMLHTTPRequests orIframes.
# Posted By StreamHub Comet Server
| 8/20/09 4:23 PM
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Jake Munson
37 Yrs old