On May 5th, 2016, CloudFlare announced the expansion of WebSocket support to all its customers, including Enterprise, Business, Pro, and Free plans. WebSockets is a protocol that enables real-time communication between web servers and clients by creating a persistent connection. This technology is vital for applications like social feeds, multimedia chat, collaborative editing, multiplayer gaming, stock updates, and more. By supporting WebSockets, CloudFlare aims to reduce latency and unnecessary HTTP header traffic, making the internet faster and more efficient for its users.