about the technology

Third-party JavaScript applications are self-contained components, typically small scripts or widgets, that add functionality to websites. As the name implies, they're offered by independent organizations, with code and asset files served from a remote web address.

about the book

There's an art to writing third-party JavaScript--embeddable scripts that can plug into any website. They must adapt easily to unknown host environments, coexist with other applications, and manage the tricky security vulnerabilities you get when code and asset files are served from remote web addresses. Get it right and you have unlimited options for distributing your apps. This unique book shows you how.

Third-Party JavaScript guides you through the ins and outs of building full-featured third-party JavaScript applications. You'll learn techniques for developing widgets that collect data for analytics, provide helpful overlays and dialogs, or implement features like chat and commenting. The concepts and examples throughout the book represent the best practices for this emerging field, based on thousands of real-world dev hours and results from millions of users.

what's inside

• Writing conflict-free JavaScript, HTML, and CSS
• Making cross-domain requests from the browser
• How to overcome third-party cookie limitations
• Security vulnerabilities of third-party applications

about the reader

Written for web developers who know JavaScript, this book requires no prior knowledge of third-party apps.

about the author

Ben Vinegar is an engineer at Disqus, a third-party JavaScript commenting platform. Anton Kovalyov is a software engineer at Mozilla. They are third-party applications experts whose work has been distributed on millions of websites.