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Does it use AJAX? If so how often does it update? It seems pretty up-to-date when I see people voting on my posts. Does calling an AJAX request like that every second make a whole lot of difference to calling that same request every 5 minutes in terms of computer processing and latency?

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marked as duplicate by Shadow Wizard, Time Traveling Bobby, animuson, Jim, Bart Nov 14 '12 at 16:03


I'm pretty sure that this utilizes the socket functionally added recently... In the same way that vote counts update and new comments... –  Lix Nov 14 '12 at 15:42
It's a live client/server connection using web sockets which were introduced as part of HTML5. –  Shadow Wizard Nov 14 '12 at 15:49
I don't think that post is the right dupe... It only talks about new questions... –  Lix Nov 14 '12 at 15:55
@Lix: from the post: As a few have mentioned below we are now experimenting with updating comment counts, votes on a post, and your reputation score. (emphasis mine). –  Martijn Pieters Nov 14 '12 at 15:57
@Lix it introduced the use of web sockets in Stack Exchange; they later added more stuff so maybe that post need to be edited. –  Shadow Wizard Nov 14 '12 at 15:58

1 Answer 1

up vote 4 down vote accepted

The counter uses web-sockets for that; here you can see them in the Chrome development console:

web sockets

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