Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is a new paradigm which was introduced in 2005. The purpose of Ajax is that of giving the illusion that websites are responsive. It achieves this by processing requests which involve the sending and receiving of small packets of data without refreshing the web browser. Ajax is founded on:

• XHTML - A rigid subset of html which is used to mark-up and style the information.
• DOM - The Document Object Model which can be accessed by the client browsers.
• XMLHttpRequest - The object used to exchange the information asynchronously.
• XML - The format used to transfer the data from the server to the client.

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