title: Best Way to Make AJAX Call from WebForms Page
body: <p>Is there a recommended way to make an AJAX call within a WebForms application?</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p>I know there is the built-in ASP.NET AJAX components, but they seem a bit heavy. I'm used to doing this in MVC and it seems very clean.</p></li>
  <li><p>I can use Page Methods, but they require that my method is static, which makes it more difficult to access my database, etc.</p></li>
  <li><p>I assume I can also just use jQuery to make the call, although attempts at this have failed in the past, usually due to problems with the way data was returned (JSON, etc.).</p></li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>My goal is get pass a string fragment and get back a list of items that match that fragment. Speed would be nice. Can I get some recommendations?</p>