Firefox VoIP Client

libocannici writes "Abbeynet Labs has released the first version of a Firefox VoIP extension which is a full featured SIP user agent plugin for Firefox." The Firefox extension is completely stand-alone, with all VoIP functionality built directly into it. From one-click calling to SMS sending, this promises to be quite handy. All Internet calls are currently free, just requiring an abbyphone account, while PSTN calls have a small charge.

Comments

AMD

[celardore]

Will it work on my AMD processor?

Re:AMD

[qbwiz]

What are you complaining about? This is an extension. The firefox developers had nothing to do with it.

Re:AMD

[gEvil (beta)]

perhaps firefox should include its own version of solitaire?

No, but it sounds like a great idea for an extension!

Err, why?

[Poromenos1]

Why does this have to be a Firefox extension? Why can't I just use Skype (or at least make it standalone)?

I use Opera, damnit!

Re:Err, why?

[misleb]

Good question. It isn't like it is cross platform or anything. So not only is it limited to Firefox, but also Windows. Seems like a silly set of restrictions just to get the "convenience" of clicking on a phone number and calling or whatever it does. How often does that happen, anyway? Calling tech support from a vendor support page?

-matthew

Re:Err, why?

[coreyb]

RTFA - you click on a phone number in a web page and it calls it. Not that cutting and pasting 10 digits would be that difficult, but there it is.

Re:Err, why?

[wfberg]

Why does this have to be a Firefox extension? Why can't I just use Skype (or at least make it standalone)?

There are a zillion stand alone SIP applications, which is beside the point.
From the company's perspective this is great for 3 reasons;
1) one-click install; no setup.exe, no .zip files people can't open, no folders they shouldn't delete; it's all hidden away, much like it's pretty hard to fudge up your macromedia flash "install".
2) silly browser integration; it recognizes phonenumbers and makes them clickable,
3) guaranteed coverage on slashdot and other firefox-crazy websites.

If it's really that useful, Opera will have it integrated in 3 months time anyway ;-)

Re:Err, why?

[Ugot2BkidNme]

umm useing the callto:############### can prompt skype to make the call for you as well. it's not like it is genious or anything it defaults to the application set same as the mailto: function on the href.

Re:Err, why?

[Bogtha]

you click on a phone number in a web page and it calls it.

You still don't need to build the VOIP into the browser. Just a Greasemonkey script to convert plain-text telephone numbers into <a href="tel:..."> links and a handler to pass off tel: links to an external program just like mailto: links are handled.

Re:Err, why?

[Bogtha]

Sure. Just build massive electric fans to blow the pollution away and invite the hungry people over for dinner.

Ticked Off Ma Bell

[neonprimetime]

I betcha if this every caught on ... it could really tick off the big phone companies.

Re:Ticked Off Ma Bell

[vishbar]

Remember the lack of net neutrality? Now, Ma Bell just calls up her ISP division, and oops--VOIP transmissions are suddenly shaped into 1kb/s oblivion...

Why use firefox then?

[Anonymous Coward]

So if it's a standalone extension, why is it an extension? Just for the GUI?

All in One ... Not always Good?

[AWhiteFlame]

Firefox Plugins: Why run anything else?

I'll just run Skype in my tray, thanks..

Almost makes you feel sorry for IE users

[gasmonso]

With all this development for FF, it makes me shed a tear for IE users. If they only knew.

http://religiousfreaks.com/

Re:Almost makes you feel sorry for IE users

[stratjakt]

Knew what? How to double click on the icon that launches skype?

I'll get the word out. Thanks.

Re:Almost makes you feel sorry for IE users

[saleenS281]

If only you knew. There's a large community out there that makes "extensions" for IE as well, you've just never bothered to look.

Re:Almost makes you feel sorry for IE users

[Stephen Gilbert]

There's a large community out there that makes "extensions" for IE as well, you've just never bothered to look.

Sadly, Microsoft's security patches keep breaking compatibility with these "extensions".

Re:Almost makes you feel sorry for IE users

[Kadin2048]

He doesn't know. That's the beauty of IE "extensions" ... they just show up on your computer, by magic!

It's the state-of-the-art in software distribution. They install it on your computer before you even know you want it there. Microsoft has always been ahead of the curve here.

Crap stuffed into firefox is not crap anymore ?

[file-exists-p]

This is a non-free windows VOIP application. There are zillions of similar things already on the market. Why is this one noticeable ? Because it was stuffed into firefox-the-free-software ?

Re:Crap stuffed into firefox is not crap anymore ?

[Anonymous Coward]

For a Free/free cross-platform Firefox VOIP extension try OpenWengo (http://www.openwengo.org)

Re:Crap stuffed into firefox is not crap anymore ?

[Lumpy]

Exactly, Its not configurable for use with Asterisk or anything else.

I find this plugin as useful as the yahoo toolbar that get's shoved down my throat at almost every turn now days.

Remember when Firefox was a web browser?

[stratjakt]

How about a FORTRAN compiler plugin or a plugin to catalog the users collection of anal beads?

Seriously, can we say feature bloat?

The next firefox news I want to here is the news that firefox 1.5 isn't a memory leaking bloated piece of shit under linux. I'm not joking when I say that running IE under wine is faster and more stable on my machine. FF is leaking memory just sitting there doing nothing -- I can see it happen with top.

Re:Remember when Firefox was a web browser?

[SmellTheCoffee]

Seriously, can we say feature bloat?

Not really...this is an EXTENSION which means it is not built into the firefox code base. You have to put extra effort to actually download and install it. If you download and install then obviously you know what you are doing and the extension is worth something to you. Other could care less and can simply chose to ignore. I don't see how that is a feature bloat.

I'm not joking when I say that running IE under wine is faster and more stable on my machine. FF is leaking memory just sitting there doing nothing -- I can see it happen with top.

I have never used wine and I'll certainly never use IE with Wine under Linux. I'm perfectly fine with Firefox or Epiphany or Mozilla or Konqueror or Opera.

There is already a skype extension for firefox

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.skype.com/download/skypewebtoolbar/fire fox.html

I maintain a salesforce database and this thing is brilliant. Just click the #.

Extensions are great.

[dubmun]

I'm just not sure I want to open Firefox everytime I want to make a phonecall ;)

Seriously, I don't think phone companies are going to care too much about this. They are more concerned with cellphone and how to continue to be profitable in the rapidly changing telecommunications marketplace.

Home telephone service is dying. (Please excuse the redundancy of that last statement. It just seemed like it needed to be said.)

Re:Extensions are great.

[PFI_Optix]

Home telephone service is dying.

Home telephone will die when:

1) Cellular coverage is complete and solid. There are still large chunks of rural areas with no service at all.

2) Cellular service becomes reliable. I run into "network busy" at least once a month; I've never had such a problem with my land line.

3) cellular service becomes truly affordable. I can get a land line with unlimited long distance for somewhere around $60-70. If I go with the most basic service, I can get it unlimited local for under $40. My cell phone plan with 600 "any time" minutes costs more than either. First cell company to unlimited minutes for $50 a month wins my cash vote.

4) DSL is available without telephone service. That's where the phone companies like AT&T are already going: they see a severe decline in landline subscriptions coming and are trying to dig into the cable market. "Fiber to the home" is becoming quite the popular phrase.

Firefox card games

[kkovach]

Been there, done that.

http://cardgames.mozdev.org/

- Kevin

Thanks, but no thanks.

[Rob T Firefly]

With my normally running Skype and/or gaim, I've already got all that functionality. I love Firefox and all, but I really see no need to use my web browser as yet another 3rd-party non-free VOIP app.

<EVERYTHING> extensions.

[OverDrive33]

Is it just me, or is it getting more and more possible to do away with Windows completely and just use a plethora of Firefox extensions to accomplish the same goals?
The more I think about it, there certainly are enough extensions out there to just have Windows boot firefox.exe rather than explorer as a default shell. Forget the start menu! Everything you need is built into your web browser!! As for office apps, there's a good range of "Web 2.0" office suites that you could use.
I can't decide if this is a good or a bad thing.

Asterisk IAX Client too

[Albanach]

As others have pointed out, it's not the first VoIP extemsion for Firefox.

There's also an IAX client for Asterisk fans called MozIAX available here.

But does it work in linux?

[Se7enLC]

... No, it doesn't work in linux

Saying "firefox plugin" is not enough if you don't plan on supporting ALL versions of firefox. You need to specify "windows only" so we can lump it in with the rest of the windows VoIP crap.

aw, geeze .....

[Gorshkov]

Somehow, I don't see me trusting the technical excellence of anybody who is going to try to talk me into trying something on a webpage with a dark blue background and small, light grey text

Not the 1st: Wengo beat them to the punch

[OlivierB]

Wengo's had a Firefox multi-plateform (Mac, PC, Linux) and multi-architecture (x86, PPC) VoIP extension available for about 4 months now. See it here

Wengo btw is my operator of choice here in Europe with top-notch voice quality and reliability with prices lower than Skype. Only problem is their inbound number is France only atm. Did I mention that they have a working Gaim port?

Re:Not the 1st: Wengo beat them to the punch

[molarmass192]

I just stumbled upon the OpenWengo FF extension for Linux here

Re:Not the 1st: Wengo beat them to the punch

[overbored]

Furthermore, the WengoPhone software is FOSS (GPL), unlike Skype and Google Talk, and it uses the SIP standard. Google only released a library (libjingle) for enabling A/V over XMPP (the Jabber protocol).

VoIP in a browser?

[mnmn]

Forgive me for asking but what part of the browsing experience makes up voip? How is voip browsing?

Things like xmms and mplayer are more 'browsing' than voip. Things like email clients, voip, financial applications, spreadsheets, idsoftware games are all non-browser software and should not be a part of the browser. A browser should include things that are required for browsers, and wont go anywhere else like shockwave flash players.

And I've seen other comments before, people dont like their firefoxen growing fatter.

Flock

[tecker]

This seems like something that would be better suited for Flock rather then Firefox. Wouldnt it make more sense for You to be able to see who was on and then be able to call them for free. Im guessing that someone will do this.

Re: extensions.

[Bogtha]

Yes, Firefox is truly becoming the 21st century EMACS. It's a decent OS, all it needs now is a good web browser ;).

What really worries me is when the EMACS developers realise that they can replace their built-in web browser with Firefox and when the Firefox developers realise that they can replace their built-in text boxes with EMACS. The resulting bloat will collapse in on itself and the Earth will be sucked into the newly-formed black hole.

An alternate to this VOIP extension

[dmbtech]

A great alternite to this extension is the openwengo firefox extension. Its a little buggy, but gets its job done and looks very nice. Its called openwengo, and you can get it from http://www.openwengo.org/ . Its open source, lightweight and also allows free phone line calls, which Abbeynet doesn't do.

s/EMACS/Firefox

[anothy]

Eighty Megabytes And Continually Swapping?

Firefox is my operating system; linux is its device drivers?

Future, meet the past. Past, the future.

Why must everything be a firefox addin, and why...

[CFD339]

...is this /. news? Does anything that happens with firefox by definition make it news? A VoIP client is just a SIP or perhaps an IAX2 stack with a text interface. There are many libraries for doing this now. A java sip library and a few minutes of ui code can build a SIP client. What value is there in having it part of firefox and not a standalone bit of java that runs in your KDE or Windoze desktop? Is there a reason you'd only want to make or receive calls when firefox is loaded?

The New New New Thing

[Doc Ruby]

I hope that the wide deployment of Firefox makes this SIP client catch on fast and replace the proprietary Skype clients that created the market.

And I hope this SIP client pushes Firefox into even further deployment.

Simple integration of voice into the Web has the power to be the "new Netscape", combining multiple related functions into a single integrated experience among hundreds of millions of people around the world.

Calling the PSTN for a charge might become like the mid-1990s paying small dialup prices to access the rest of the Net for "free".

Re:Can we get an office suite as well?

[baadger]

Somebody should work on getting User Mode Linux entirely encapsulated in a single one-click install Firefox extension...then we could run Firefox on it.

Isn't it now called VONSA?

[freelunch]

Voice Over NSA.

Re: extensions.

[linvir]

I can't decide if this is a good or a bad thing.

Good:

• OS independance
• Mostly open standards and open source
• World peace
• A cure for AIDS

Bad:

• The price of OS independance (in this case) is incredibly high-level programming, with system requirements to match
• PAEDOPHILES CAN USE BROWSERS!!!

My Pentium III can still handle KDE + Firefox + Extensions, so I'm not complaining yet. And at 4 - 2, it's a net win for Good Thing.

seems like the term "free" being abused here

[sacrilicious]

For a Free/free cross-platform Firefox VOIP extension try OpenWengo

Skimming the site, the software may be free/open/libre, but it looks like the infrastructure into which it taps is not free (Wengo charges money). Is this the case with all voip setups/clients (that they must necessarily tap into a non-free infrastructural provider)?

Re:Standard protocol is needed!!

[rodac]

There are two standards for VoIP (SIP and H.323) and any application that implements them should interoperate just fine with any other implementation.
Any SIP VoIP application should interoperate just fine with any other SIP application. same goes for H.323.

Skype is special and uses a proprietary nonstandard protocol and as such wont interoperate with anything else.
It would be nice if skype were to be gradually phased out and replaced with proper H.323 or SIP based applications.

Re:Standard protocol is needed!!

[ianalis]

SIP is the standard protocol. What you are asking is a standard client which is politically hard to do especially in the FOSS community.

compatibility

[DrYak]

Why can't I just use Skype ?

Maybe because Skype uses some closed proprietary protocols, and is only compatible with Skype,
whereas this extension use the SIP protocol (documented and open), and therefor is compatible with the gazillion of other SIP-compatible VoIP applications (e.g.: Ekiga - H323/SIP VoIP software).

Re:Standard protocol is needed!!

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

There are two standards for VoIP (SIP and H.323)[...]

Don't count out IAX2. Although mainly designed to talk to Asterisk servers A)anyone could conceivably use it anyway and B) there certainly seem to be a lot of Asterisk servers out there these days...

But, yeah, SIP (the current favorite) and H.323 (older protocol, used by MS's old "NetMeeting(tm)" product and a number of others) are the big ones.