Categories
WebRTC

Talky is a nice WebRTC client

I’ve written before about using Firefox Hello, the video chat feature that is now built into Firefox. Firefox Hello is built on top of WebRTC, which is now part of HTML. This means that video chat can also be implemented in ordinary webpages.

I’ve been using Talky recently for lots of 1-on-1 meetings and even some groups meetings. It has some really nice features.

  • You can choose a room name, which becomes part of the URL — e.g. https://talky.io/myroom.
  • There’s an optional tab-sharing feature.
  • The UI is simple and provides a symmetric experience for all participants.

Great stuff!

Categories
Firefox WebRTC

You should use WebRTC for your 1-on-1 video meetings

Did you know that Firefox 33 (currently in Beta) lets you make a Skype-like video call directly from one running Firefox instance to another without requiring an account with a central service (such as Skype or Vidyo)?

This feature is built on top of Firefox’s WebRTC support, and it’s kind of amazing.

It’s pretty easy to use: just click on the toolbar button that looks like a phone handset or a speech bubble (which one you see depends which version of Firefox you have) and you’ll be given a URL with a call.mozilla.com domain name. [Update: depending on which beta version you have, you might need to set the loop.enabled preference in about:config, and possibly customize your toolbar to make the handset/bubble icon visible.] Send that URL to somebody else — via email, or IRC, or some other means — and when they visit that URL in Firefox 33 (or later) it will initiate a video call with you.

I’ve started using it for 1-on-1 meetings with other Mozilla employees and it works well. It’s nice to finally have an open source implementation of video calling. Give it a try!