Web Sockets Now Available In Google Chrome

http://blog.chromium.org/2009/12/web-sockets-now-available-in-google.html

by gps408 • 17 years ago

119 38 17 years ago

blog.chromium.org

spazmaster• 17 years ago

Great, with Apple, Mozilla and now Google innovating in the browser sphere, it looks like browser will be evolving at a much more rapid pace.

Gah, let's hope Microsoft gets some vision for IE too. (or ditch it like Bing ditched Live)

umjames• 17 years ago

I agree, but I'd rather have users get some vision. You'd be surprised how many people still use IE6, even though Microsoft wants them to upgrade. Less-savvy users don't switch unless:

1. They have to (meaning their current methods no longer do anything or the software or hardware no longer works).

2. Someone more savvy does it for them and teaches them the new software. Usually this happens after #1.

Unfortunately, I don't know if there's much we can do about this kind of user. We shouldn't (and won't) have to hold ourselves back because they refuse to upgrade.

slig• 17 years ago

I've seem that too. Non-savvy users can and will update their MSN-messenger client if it stops working, for instance.

danielrhodes• 17 years ago

Most IE6 installations are in corporate environments where IT doesn't want to switch because it will break internal applications.

TallGuyShort• 17 years ago

In addition to what danielrhodes says in his reply about corporate IT departments having legitimate reasons not to upgrade - I'd like to add that my biggest pet peeve is when someone asks me to see if I can fix their computer, and it's obvious that every IT-enthusiast before me has insisted that this person switch to -INSERT BROWSER HERE-. I helped a gentleman last week that used MSN because he found it intuitive, but had Firefox, Opera, Chrome and IE installed. Then there was the mountain of anti-spyware software everyone had installed. After uninstalling the browsers he didn't like or use (despite them being "better" according to most IT professionals) and uninstalling the spyware blockers, his computer worked just fine.

We need to remember that our job is to make the computer better for other people - not just ourselves. I'm amazed at the rate of development I've seen in browser technology, but let's not forget the millions of people that just want to get online and send an email. If we rush to upgrade everyone to "better" technology - we might end up ruining their experience.

tjmc• 17 years ago

I suspect most of these users just use the browser that shipped with their OS. So Windows 7 may be the unlikely saviour - particularly after the next corporate refresh cycle.

IgorPartola2• 17 years ago

IMHO: Whenever Microsoft gets a "vision for IE" we get ActiveX, document.all, CSS expressions, page load speed ups by ignoring HTTP specs (ignoring cache info), etc. Let's not. I am happy with Microsoft playing catch-up and implementing killer features of other browsers instead of inventing its own: ones without open specs or standards or documentation or sense or reason.

DomesticMouse2• 17 years ago

You forgot XHR.

bumblebird3• 17 years ago

Does the WebSocket spec allow for gzip/deflating streams as well? I can't see anywhere if it does or not.

DrJokepu• 17 years ago

A quick Google search (http://www.google.com/search?q=websocket+compression) revealed that it's not supported yet, however it might get added in a future version: http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/hybi/current/msg00789.h...

izend• 17 years ago

I can abandon Flash sockets if this becomes mainstream.

rbranson• 17 years ago

As the saying goes: "that's awesome, if only it worked on IE6..."

bumblebird3• 17 years ago

If you care about IE6 these days, and aren't selling to corporate users forced to use it, then you're doing something wrong.

Also, you can just enable it when it's available, and fallback to comet etc when it's not.

robotron• 17 years ago

While the numbers are falling, IE 6 users still account for a sizable percentage of the people that buy things from my site. Ignoring them would be "doing something wrong". Guess it just depends on what you're doing.

IgorPartola2• 17 years ago

I think the main issue here is not IE6 but all the modern browsers (FF 3.5, Safari 4, IE8) that do not support this feature. Targeting Chrome users only is not that appealing.

enjo2• 17 years ago

It really depends.

I recently did a bit of consulting work for a guy who has a large number of domains receiving primarily organic search traffic. Around 20% of the people hitting those (several million a month) are still using IE6.

mbrubeck• 17 years ago

You can use a Flash compatibility shim to make your sites use Web Sockets in some browsers and Flash sockets in others: http://github.com/gimite/web-socket-js

This is the best of both worlds; Flash works for IE users, and Web Sockets will hopefully be available soon in plenty of non-Flash browsers (like the iPhone).

stanleydrew• 17 years ago

Won't Chrome Frame fix the IE problem?

est• 17 years ago

> The protocol is not raw TCP because it needs to provide the browser's "same-origin" security model. It's also not HTTP because web socket traffic differers from HTTP's request-response model.

If Websocket has something like crossdomain.xml does that mean we can build p2p applications on that?

duskwuff• 17 years ago

No - it doesn't have a passive mode.

oomkiller• 17 years ago

I'd like to see an Erlang implementation of a WebSocket server, anyone know if this has been attempted?

marketer• 17 years ago

Not sure if there's one in erlang, but go has a websocket server built into the standard library:

http://golang.org/pkg/websocket/

daleharvey• 17 years ago

google confuse me

how was this implemented before local storage? every current version of browsers supports it apart from chrome (and opera?)

saying that it is pretty awesome, web sockets have been a long time coming

laktek• 17 years ago

I've implemented a Ruby version of WebSocket server (which is based on EventMachine and yet very experimental) - http://github.com/laktek/Web-Socket-Examples

joblessjunkie• 17 years ago

Are there any examples of web sockets live right now? I'd like to see it in action...

k7d• 17 years ago

The main challenge with bidirectional browser communication is really in the backend. It does not scale nearly as easy as easy as RESTful HTTP requests.

I'm sure Google has developed some serious technology to address this while building Wave. Wondering if some of it come to Google AppEngine anytime soon?

cracki• 17 years ago

  ws.onclose = function() { // websocket is closed. };

someone reformatted the code without checking...

Web Sockets Now Available In Google Chrome

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