WebSockets allow us to build “real-time”
applications without the use of long-polling. From that point, the connection is binary and does not conform to HTTP protocol. A server application is aware of all WebSocket connections and can communicate with each one individually. As WebSocket remains open, either the server or the user can send messages at any time until one of them closes the session. The communication can be initiated at either end, which makes event-driven web programming possible. Now that you have an idea about what WebSockets are, you must be wondering how it’s different from HTTP (a request-response protocol) and what protocol WebSocket is used for.

This bit is set if
this frame is the last data to complete this message. WebSocket is a framed protocol, meaning that a chunk of data (a message)
is divided into a number of discrete chunks, with the size of the chunk
encoded in the frame. The https://deveducation.com/en/blog/ frame includes a frame type, a payload length,
and a data portion. An overview of the frame is given in RFC
6455 and reproduced
here. Additionally, the server can decide on extension/subprotocol requests here; see Miscellaneous for details.

Head To Head Comparison Between WebSocket and Socket.io (Infographics)

Masking stops caches from misinterpreting WebSocket frames as cacheable data. PubNub is a real-time communications platform that provides the foundation for authentic virtual experiences, like live updates, in-app chat, push notifications, and more. The building block structure of our platform allows for extra features like Presence, operational dashboards, or geolocation to be incorporated. PubNub also makes it extremely easy to scale, especially compared to socket frameworks like Socket.io or SocksJS.

One of the primary benefits is that they eliminate the need for the client to repeatedly poll the server for updates, as is the case with traditional HTTP requests. This not only reduces the load on the server but also improves the responsiveness of the web application. Overall, it is a powerful and versatile technology that benefits web developers and end users significantly. They have opened up new possibilities for building real-time web applications and have helped make the web more interactive and dynamic. WebSockets, on the other hand, allow for sending message-based data,
similar to UDP, but with the reliability of TCP.

What are WebSockets and How Does It Work?

The server responds with a hash of the key in a Sec-Websocket-Auth header. This header exchange prevents a caching proxy from resending previous WebSocket exchanges. Once connected through an HTTP request/response pair, the clients can use an HTTP/1.1 mechanism called an upgrade header to switch their connection from HTTP over to WebSockets. A WebSocket connection is established through a websocket handshake over the TCP.

• Such an attack is known as cache poisoning and arises from the fact that you cannot control the manner in which misbehaving proxies act.
• To ensure safety, you can use the WSS protocol in all three significant applications.
• HTTP is stateless and is used for the development of RESTful and SOAP applications.