Firefox 18: Mozilla Plans WebRTC Support

If you are spending most of the time on your computer using a web browser like Firefox, you may in the future spend even more time using the browser, and nothing but the browser. The idea behind Web Real-Time Communications (WebRTC) is to add options to the web browser to share and stream audio, video and data. How that is different from today’s options to do so? WebRTC requires no plugins, extensions or third party software to provide you with those functionalities.

Think of video calls, webcam chat, life streams and all that good stuff right from your browser. The data that you stream can come from local devices such as microphones, webcams or video cameras, or from pre-recorded sources. WebRTC allows you to grant web apps and websites access to a webcam or microphone on your computer and communicate directly with other users using peer to peer connections. Mozilla, Google, Opera and other companies are working on WebRTC making it a cross-browser technology. Once added to all modern browsers, it is theoretically possible to use WebRTC to communicate with users  who use a different web browser than you do, provided that it supports the technology.