I'm looking for the 'way to go' (i.e. the most efficient, most used, general accepted way) when it comes to the reloading of data from a web server to a front end. In the end application, I will have several output fields where data has to be written to, for example like this:

The data streams will be different from each other in the end application. The lines will have to be reloaded with fresh, up to date data from the server.

I have been thinking of using Ajax requests to update like every second, but there has to be an other way to do this. Ajax requests will cause a lot data traffic. Also, when using the Facebook chat, you don't have to wait every second, chats are received almost instantly. Yet I don't see any Ajax polling requests being made when I use the developer tools of Mozilla Firefox. This made me think if there would be a different way to do this.

I've looked into Node.js, but it appears that isn't possible with my host.

I have heard people talking about Ajax Push, is that what I should use? If so, can you give me a basic usage example?

If not, what would then be the way to go when having multiple data streams that have to be reloaded within a second?

Requirements are speed and low data traffic. It therefore wouldn't be an option to continuously poll the server, I think, because that would create an enormous overhead.

^{I don't think it's of any importance, but I'm using PHP5.3 in the back end and JavaScript with jQuery 1.9.1 in the front end.}