High Performance Browser Networking

Preface

The web browser is the most widespread deployment platform available to developers today: it is installed on every smartphone, tablet, laptop, desktop, and every other form factor in between. In fact, current cumulative industry growth projections put us on track for 20 billion connected devices by 2020—each with a browser, and at the very least, WiFi or a cellular connection. The type of platform, manufacturer of the device, or the version of the operating system do not matter—each and every device will have a web browser, which by itself is getting more feature rich each day.

The browser of yesterday looks nothing like what we now have access to, thanks to all the recent innovations: HTML and CSS form the presentation layer, JavaScript is the new assembly language of the Web, and new HTML5 APIs are continuing to improve and expose new platform capabilities for delivering engaging, high-performance applications. There is simply no other technology, or platform, that has ever had the reach or the distribution that is made available to us today when we develop for the browser. And where there is big opportunity, innovation always follows.

In fact, there is no better example of the rapid progress and innovation than the networking infrastructure within the browser. Historically, we have been restricted to simple HTTP request-response interactions, and today we have mechanisms for efficient streaming, bidirectional and real-time communication, ability to deliver custom application ...