Connecting to TCP Socket from browser using javascript

Question

I have a vb.net application that opens a socket and listens on it.

I need to communicate via this socket to that application using a javascript running on a browser. That is i need to send some data on this socket so that the app which is listening on this socket can take that data, do some stuff using some remote calls and get some more data and put it back on the socket that my javascript needs to read and print it in the browser.

Ive tried, socket.io, websockify but none have proved to be useful.

Hence the question, is what i am trying even possible? Is there a way that a javascript running in a browser can connect to a tcp socket and send some data and listen on it for some more data response on the socket and print it to the browser.

If this is possible can some one point me in the right direction as to which would help me establish the goal.

Answer 1

As for your problem, currently you will have to depend on XHR or websockets for this.

Currently no popular browser has implemented any such raw sockets api for javascript that lets you create and access raw sockets, but a draft for the implementation of raw sockets api in JavaScript is under-way. Have a look at these links:
http://www.w3.org/TR/raw-sockets/
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/TCPSocket

Chrome now has support for raw TCP and UDP sockets in its ‘experimental’ APIs. These features are only available for extensions and, although documented, are hidden for the moment. Having said that, some developers are already creating interesting projects using it, such as this IRC client.

To access this API, you’ll need to enable the experimental flag in your extension’s manifest. Using sockets is pretty straightforward, for example:

chrome.experimental.socket.create('tcp', '127.0.0.1', 8080, function(socketInfo) {
  chrome.experimental.socket.connect(socketInfo.socketId, function (result) {
        chrome.experimental.socket.write(socketInfo.socketId, "Hello, world!");         
    });
});