 <p>IE8 supports the <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/XMLHttpRequest/" rel="nofollow">XMLHttpRequest</a> object. You can use that to do ajax. The page also has an example:</p> <pre><code>var client = new XMLHttpRequest(); client.onreadystatechange = handler; client.open("GET", "unicorn.xml"); client.send(); </code></pre>