People often are concerned regarding security of WebSockets. Reality is that it makes little difference or even puts WebSockets as better option. First of all with AJAX there is a higher chance of MITM as each request is new TCP connection and traversing through internet infrastructure. With WebSockets, once it's connected it is far more challenging to intercept in between, with additionally enforced frame masking when data is streamed from client to server as well as additional compression, that requires more effort to probe data. All modern protocols support both: HTTP and HTTPS (encrypted). http://solvedstack.com/questions/ht...lling-vs-ajax-vs-webrtc-vs-server-sent-events