Ajax is probably the most useful web technology today. Ajax, is a web development technique that enables a browser to retrieve data and load it onto a page without refreshing the browser window.

The data handling that happens on the backend in Ajax, is done with XML, every browser parses XML differently so application Developer must include a great deal of browser-specific rules to ensure compatibility. As one would imagine, the resulting code can get quite bulky.

There is a solution to this problem, and it’s called Fjax (Flash+Ajax). Fjax works a whole lot like Ajax — it uses an XML file to pass data to a browser — except that it uses a tiny bit of Flash, instead of the browser, to parse the XML. All of that browser-specific code is eliminated, leaving the application more lightweight and putting less of a strain on the browser.

Fjax uses the Flash Player to load a 1 pixel by 1 pixel transparent SWF to simply get XML from the server. Once it has the XML, it parses it into HTML and then lets JavaScript know it’s ready. JavaScript then gets the HTML from Flash and DHTMLs it into the web page — it uses JavaScript to write (X)HTML/CSS onto the page.

You can see live Fjax examples on http://www.fjax.net

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