The WebSocket protocol (also colloquially referred to as WebSockets) is a different protocol from HTTP. However, HTTP initiates it and it uses the same ports so we'll discuss it briefly here. This HTML5 feature is useful for push notifications and Real Time Communication (RTC) applications. WebSockets use the ws:// and wss:// protocol prefixes instead of http:// and https://. Once established by an existing HTTP connection, the protocol is full-duplex and binary, in contrast to HTTP/1.
Before WebSockets, if your web server wanted to notify a client of a change, then you would have to use a technique such as long polling.
This is where a web request is held open by the server in case it wants to send something. When the request ...
