There is a third way to acquire and use the framework. In the previous section, we looked at two different ways in which we can download and include the framework locally in our project. In addition to downloading jQuery Mobile, you can also use it via a content delivery network (CDN).

When using a CDN such as Google or even jQuery's own, you do not have the files stored on your local server. Instead, when the user loads your web application or site, it makes a connection to the CDN and uses it from there. This offers a few advantages over having it on the server. One of the biggest advantages is that it increases parallelism. Typically your browser can only download a couple of files at a time from the same server. So if you load the jQuery files, jQuery Mobile framework JavaScript and CSS files, a few custom CSS, and JavaScript files, this can cause a bottleneck as you will have to wait for all the files to download. If you use a CDN, your application makes a connection to Google's server, for example, and downloads a couple of files while your local ones load. This may not seem like a lot of benefit since the files are so small, but it can make a world of difference to your end user. Some other advantages are as follows:

So with all these cool advantages, why in the world would we ever want to use it locally? I mean, it sounds like we'd be stupid to ever download it again. Well, my friends, as with many things in life, there is always a downside.

Obviously, the biggest downfall is offline applications. If you are expecting or even adding the slightest bit of offline functionality to your project, then you cannot have the project going off server to use the framework from a CDN. It would have to be stored locally. If the user is offline, they won't be able to download it from the CDN and therefore would not be able to use the project that you worked so hard on.

Okay, so you're not planning on any offline functionality of your project. What else could stop you from using it via a CDN? Well, my friends we have a few more downfalls:

Well, we assume that we have covered the advantages and disadvantages of the usage of CDN well enough, so let's look at how and from where we can load jQuery Mobile.

There are three main CDNs we can use in our projects. They are Google, Microsoft, and of course, jQuery itself. Are there advantages to using one over the other? Possibly, but I think the differences would be small. Google may offer more mirrors but more people may use jQuery's own CDN meaning more people would have it cached, so in the end there may be no difference in efficiency.

We will look at the code for each of the CDNs and you can pull it from whichever one you wish to use.

<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquerymobile/1.4.5/jquery.mobile.min.css" />
<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.0/jquery.min.js "></script>
<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquerymobile/1.4.5/jquery.mobile.min.js"></script>

<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jquery.mobile/1.4.5/jquery.mobile-1.4.5.min.css" />
<script src="http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-1.11.0.min.js"></script>
<script src="http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jquery.mobile/1.4.5/jquery.mobile-1.4.5.min.js"></script>

<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://code.jquery.com/mobile/1.4.5/jquery.mobile-1.4.5.min.css" />
<script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.11.0.min.js"></script>
<script src="http://code.jquery.com/mobile/1.4.5/jquery.mobile-1.4.5.min.js"></script>