With WebRTC, the Skype's no longer the limit

We're testing WebRTC within our company for private video calls, that don't require Skype or Google Hangouts or any other 3rd party service. The nice thing about these calls is that they are peer-to-peer, which means that the connection is made directly between the devices that are part of the call, and don't need to be handled by any 3rd party servers. The quality is as good as the connection between the devices, and doesn't require any special plugins, though not all browsers support it, and currently it cannot be done on iphone or android mobile devices.

I'd really like to see this become widespread and standard on all devices.

I think it will be over the next few years. Especially since Microsoft will be eager to push it now as they want to use it to power Skype in the browser.

I didn't understand the advantage of it, what's the difference from, say, Facetime or Skype?

Both of those require a stand alone application, and cannot be done natively from a browser (yet - Skype will be able to soon).

You also need an account for both Skype and FaceTime, whereas with WebRTC, an account is not necessary if the person who has set up the web page doesn't require one. And finally, a website owner cannot embed Skype or FaceTime in their website, because they are proprietary softwares, whereas anyone can use WebRTC if they have the technical skill to work with it.

It basically brings video chat to the masses.

@Strangerlang

Hold on please. Skype and FaceTime are very different. FaceTime does require an Apple ID in order to call an email address but you don't need to log in every time time to call with FaceTime like in Skype. FaceTime is an app, but it is also a system service available anywhere in the system so that one can initiate an FaceTime call directly without to launch first the app. And note that to use WebRTC, you do also need an app, that's the web browser that you need to launch first. Technically (communication protocols), WebRTC is really not better than FaceTime, the point is that it is cross platform which FaceTime isn't.

I don't buy the everything in the web broswer mantra, brawsers are getting more and more complex and bloated and they really don't need to take that road. They want to do 3D (what the point really?) and now they want also video and audio communications all packed into multi million line of codes beasts that have shown to be the preferred road for security attacks. What I am saying is that the web browser shouldn't be some sort of operating system running on top on another one, it should let the main OS handle this king of low level tasks.

In October, Microsoft committed to including a version of WebRTC on its Internet Explorer browser, leaving only Apple as the main holdout. An Apple spokesperson declined to discuss the company’s plans for WebRTC in detail.

WebRTC is at this moment a working draft, that is a proposal for inclusion to the HTML5 standard. Nothing is finalized, even not WebRTC itself, so talking on who supports it or not is just plain useless at this point.

FaceTime does require an Apple ID in order to call an email address but you don't need to log in every time time to call with FaceTime like in Skype.

I never claimed that you do.

But actually, you're only partially right. You need to be logged in to make a call. The difference is the persistence of the login - apple devices will keep you logged in indefinitely, while Skype requires you to log in each time the application is started. But the theory behind both of them is exactly the same.

I don't buy the everything in the web broswer mantra, brawsers are getting more and more complex and bloated and they really don't need to take that road. They want to do 3D (what the point really?)

The point is that developers don't have to develop both a platform as well as the application, they only have to develop the application. The platform is provided in the form of the browser.

What I am saying is that the web browser shouldn't be some sort of operating system running on top on another one, it should let the main OS handle this king of low level tasks.

I'm sure you can find some stripped down browser out there somewhere that only lets you surf text and images. But for everyone else, browsers that can handle all sorts of interfaces are the direction we are moving in. But no one is making you use those browsers, so you should shop around to find a browser that meets your needs.

WebRTC is at this moment a working draft, that is a proposal for inclusion to the HTML5 standard. Nothing is finalized, even not WebRTC itself, so talking on who supports it or not is just plain useless at this point.

It's already been implemented in Firefox, Opera and Chrome - three of the main browsers out there, so while it still may be a working draft, it's also a real, existing application. We are using it right now within our company. If we didn't talk about who supports it or not, then the people we have using it would be confused when they try to open up our URLs in Safari, and nothing happens.

Skype and Facetime are probably proprietary. With all the drawbacks.

Looked at Jingle (extension to XMPP) a while back for same purpose, peer-to-peer videochat with no server needed for connections, don't know if WebRTC uses it, seems like they both came out of Google.

The first videochat I ever used had peer-to-peer capability but that was a long time ago. Fly on the Wall or something like that. You called over landline or sent email to get your peer's IP address from them and then used that to connect the video call. IIRC.

Why is this news, this is a 2 year old technology?

http://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2014/10/16/test-the-new-firefox-hello-webrtc-feature-in-firefox-beta/

Soon we will all just be assigned an IP address each and that will follow us worldwide for all services. The traditional sense of the telephone number and mailing address will just be a novelty that will only exist for legal formalities and 'dinosaur reasons'. This change will be a double edged sword for the convenience will most certainly be there but then there's the dark side of it which I will leave to each to figure out as it will affect everyone differently depending on how they view things on this planet.

Soon we will all just be assigned an IP address each and that will follow us worldwide for all services.

No. The nature of IP addresses ensures this will never happen. The structure of the IP address tells on which network the computer can be found, so they cannot be moved to other networks. So the whole hypothesis here does not work.

Hold on guys,

Skype is working, if you use Microsoft Outlook on a web browser. Skype used to be peer-2-peer, but has switched to centralized model since last year to overcome the drawback of p2p (both sides have to be online) Skype on Windows 8/Windows phone acts as system service so you can receive incoming call regardless of what you are doing, just as a regular phone call. Still don't get the point of this, kind of redundant.

Still don't get the point of this, kind of redundant.

There are three points:

1) It's browser based, and does not require a standalone application

2) It can be done without an account through a 3rd party vendor like Skype

3) Anyone can embed it in their websites, without having to make a contract with Skype or some other company that provides this service. As the technology is native in the browser, it's easy to set up. People who do set up can require passwords, set session limits (limit the amount of time etc) and many other things. For teachers who want to do online lessons, this technology would allow them to do it without having to use a 3rd party vendor.

So, if my machine is assigned a dynamic IP address, how does someone call me, without a third-party server managing the connections from peers wishing to call me?

A 3rd party server is required for the connection. But the connection itself doesn't go through that 3rd party server, it's peer-to-peer.

A 3rd party server is required for the connection.

Thanks, I was trying to avoid even that, but I guess unless I want to play with DynamicDNS, or voicecalling or emailing our current sticky IP addresses back and forth between me and remote caller, will just try the 3rd party thing. Sometime.

Read the link badsey3 posted above, it's a lot simpler than that.

One thing that people may not be realizing here, in general the benefit for this will not be so much for the end user, but rather for developers. Though of course the benefit for developers mean that end users will have better services on the sites they use.

Read the link badsey3 posted above, it's a lot simpler than that.

OK, that looks easy.

I use a VPN for security and always change it. I do not want to be marked with a stagnant number.