Slashdot Mirror
Google WebRTC: Can It Replace Skype?
mikejuk writes "Google WebRTC, all open source, is part of the web revolution that allows one browser to talk directly to another without the need for a server getting involved. WebRTC is an API that used the new P2P web API to allow developers to implement audio and video communications using direct P2P links between browsers. This really is a game changer."
And, while this feature doesn't seem to have gotten a lot of attention so far, Google Voice can call landline and cell phones for a small fee, just like Skype.
Tell me that such a thing as direct p2p connection between two anonymous computers in the wild, and even web-browser, is simply said IMPOSSIBLE without a third party, which is managing the tunnel between them. I simply don't see how this could work. No, no and no.
MS has not announced how exactly they will change Skype, but you can bet it will involve monetization in all forms. Don't expect any of the currently free Skype services to continue. Asterisk already lost Skype support.
This is a great opportunity for Google to roll out a multi-platform competitor.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
IRC DCC but with XML and in a BROWSER! If this stuff was any good, it would have been implemented in the OS, not in the browser.
Oh, it's yet another thing limited to the USA. Carry on, nothing to see here.
Another in a long series of (mostly failed) attempts by Google to successfully branch out beyond search & ads.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Unless something has changed, Google Voice isn't VoIP, and doesn't charge to call landlines or cell phones because it uses your own phone minutes to call them.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Read the summary again, it's a WEB REVOLUTION! Red like the blood that shall be spilled for the virtual betterment of all!
Grammar nazis are to this community what excrements are to gold.
Adobe's RTMFP has had this ability for years now, and they've since developed it further to include peer-to-peer rebroadcasting.
Except... it requires Flash, which is a dirty word around these parts.
This signature can save you $400 on your car insurance!
Actually, the feature that shows up with the Google Chat stuff on the left side of my Gmail includes a link "Call Phone", that lets you call any number in Canada or the States. It works great for me _and_ it's completely free for 2011.
Now all slashdotters go make a fake gmail address, login through a proxy server and start harassing your ex-boss/annoying coworker/the cute girl who turned you down for a date. Looks very difficult to trace.
At least for domestic calls, Google Voice is free. Either that or Google likes me enough to never charge me when I call landlines from my computer.
Sent from my iPhone 5
Why the fuck does this functionality belong in a browser?
Is it that people are no longer smart enough to launch any other application, so every single thing their computer does has to be done inside a browser?
- screen sharing
- conference call (audio + video)
- call in every country (perhaps that work, I didn't try yet)
are the most important for me.
I heard you like an OS in your OS, so I put an app in your app so you can experience the reinvention of every app while you surf the web.
I'm not sure I like this trend of taking every piece of software functionality, making it work inside a browser, and then treating it like it's something new. I feel like I'm back in the 90s, where every new song on the radio was some old song sung by a new person.
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
But they broke things with the Linux google-talkplugin 2.0.6.0-1 a month ago, both in Chrome and FF, and it's still not fixed. And I get about as many dropped calls as I did before with AT&T. I guess reliability will improve over time...
Wow, that's really amazing, and definitely has the potential to be a game-changer. Now I'll just wait a few minutes for the slashdot comments to roll in and dash my hopes in the most brilliant fashion imaginable...
Thanks for visiting Google Voice. We're not yet open for users outside the US, but are planning to expand our service to additional countries in the future.
Sorry. Not even close to Skype.
from the WebRTC FAQ:
Includes and abstracts key NAT and firewall traversal technology using STUN, ICE, TURN, RTP-over-TCP and support for proxies.
Does anyone know how well this works in practice? It seems that some external server will be needed for coordination, making this very much less P2P than it would otherwise be.
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
"WebRTC is an API that used the new P2P web API to allow developers to implement audio and video communications using direct P2P links between browsers"
But how will security services be able to monitor this if it don't go through some supernode?
And since the big reason for using skype is to stay in touch internationally, that's a much bigger barrier than you might think.
I am trolling
For this to even be a great success, the application needs to be `verbable` (I know verbable as a word does not exist in the English dictionary).
That is, it needs to be put into a sentence as: 'skyped' is to skype, 'googgled' is to google, and so on...So we need a verb for the application. Suggestions welcome.
My suggestion 'Mirror' so that we can say bogaboga mirrored in from Helsinki. How about that?
The WebRTC code that was released is missing many important bits that are required to compete against Skype. The most important is probably a bandwidth management engine, the code that's currently public just sends at a pre-configured bitrate. That means it can only do low resolution video with a shitty quality.
That said, Google Talk in GMail and Android have a dynamic bitrate stuff, and I expect they will be released at some point. I should also mention that Farsight2/Farstream using in Empathy and Pidgin are currently gaining the same kind of bandwidth management that Google is doing. So we should get at least two independent open implementations soon.
Unlike Skype with the backdoor rumors, Google will give your data away through the front door.
Most people that use Skype do so for a number of usability reasons:
- Easy to use interface not clobbered with social stuff (until now)
- Runs on Linux, Windows and Mac
- Stand alone program that does not get in front of you every time like MSN that has lots of giant windows
- Multiple connections from multiple computers
- Messages don't come back, nor you should ever retype a message. If you type and press enter, its the IM system the job to deliver it (much unlike MSN)
- And some others
Web browsers with p2p ability cannot do that.
Well, sadly Microsoft can disrupt all the Skype usability, or could get rid of it in favour of making everything MSN.
Just adding the Landline phone call, SMS messaging and the localized billing systems to MSN won't make it.
If it is just a P2P API, why the hell do I care if it works with in a browser or has anything to do with the web? I really don't get this obsession with putting things inside browsers. Yeah, it might be handy from time to time to be able to check something on the web like gmail, but for any serious use, I WILL want a desktop (or mobile) app. Sorry, but web apps just don't integrate like desktop apps do. I like Skype's dedicated contact list floating its own window (old Mac version). Notifications through Growl and the Dock. I would be severely crippled if I had to run any Skype replacement inside a browser. It would suck. So.. yeah. Great that it is an open API, but I don't care that it works in a browser.
Note that Skype also does neat things like screen sharing, group chats, etc. I use it very extensively for work.
Slashdot confirms: "It's a game changer".
Skype is P2P VoIP too. This is old technology rehashed one more time. It works OK--I mean there's a reason why Skype's so popular--but if you really want useful open-source VoIP look to SIP implementations.
Steven
Welcome to a technology I've happily been using for phone service (with real analog cordless phones) for the last 4 years. These the-browser-is-the-OS fanatics have yet to realize, sadly, that there's nothing revolutionary about re-implementing existing stuff on a different platform.
Although P2P is pretty cool, I do feel like having a server in the middle generally helps things.
Sure there is uPNP, but I don't even like using it with bittorrent.
Skype does open a port on your machine, but I think in general don't you use a middle server that connects the two sides ( likely behind firewalls ) together?
What I'd rather see is a more general purpose API that connects to networks, sound, and video. We are definitely getting there, but we can essentially replace Flash with a few more APIs and further Javascript performance improvements.
From a security standpoint we have to find a way to let Javascript do network connections that are not the same as the main URL. I think the easiest way it to use something like SPF where a dns entry can be plopped on the main sites URL marking the IP address of the server as safe.
This won't really replace Skype as they still have native apps and other access points ( POT lines ), but it could even be used by skype while you are on the road versus some Flash app.
And can't we get an open web cam API before a P2P api? This is why Google needs better product teams, engineers just decide to do cool things, not always useful ones.
I'm sorry, but a huge, huge problem over the last two decades is this whole mentality of can XYZ's proprietary approach replace ABC's proprietary approach.
I don't want protocols that are implemented in a single app by a single vendor. What I want is to be able to use the chat app of MY CHOICE and talk to any other use of any other chat program, so that they can use the chat program of THEIR CHOICE.
So, in my ideal world, people on aim can send texts, audio chats, video, files, etc to people on Google Voice, Skype, WebRTC, MSN, Yahoo, or what-the-heck-ever.
That's the way email has been working forever, and it's a great model. With chat programs, since you can choose who to accept messages from and who to let see when you're online, etc, you have much less problem with spam, etc, than you would with email.
But, why can't we adapt the "user@serviceprovider.tld" model of contacting people to the world of IM, instead of having to have 8 different chat accounts on 8 different service providers, none of whom will interoperate with anyone else?
Email would suck if you needed a seperate email account to send and receive email from every different ISP. Chat sucks today, for that reason.
P2P built in the browser...
I am the only one seeing this as the next big platform for file sharing ? one that doesn't require an external client like bittorrent does ?
other advantage, the possibility of using SSL long before starting a search/download would completly block bittorrent monitoring companies from reporting users media associations, if done right.
who want's to start codding ?
What ? Me, worry ?
Perhaps I should clarify one point. Before anyone brings it up, I know that, for the most part, the protocols themselves are "open" enough that, e.g. Pidgin can login to any of the different chat servers. The problem is, that I have to have a seperate account and login to every different chat server.
I want to login to a single chat server of my choice, and still be able to get presence info, chat via text ,voice, or video, and transfer files, with anyone on any other server.
Steve Jobs said it at the WWDC keynoe when it was announced in June of last year: "We're going to the standards bodies starting tomorrow and we're going to make FaceTime an open industry standard."
All that means is that FaceTime's protocols will be open - so anyone could build their own implementation of a FaceTime client or a FaceTime server (presumably it needs one).
It does not necessarily mean that Apple's FaceTime system will accept connections from non-Apple FaceTime clients, or that Apple's FaceTime clients (the FaceTime app on OS X, or FaceTime on iOS devices) will connect to non-Apple FaceTime servers.
Which is too bad, really. I hope they do fully open it up to outside use, but I doubt it.
Putting moderation advice in your
You can call out internationally with Google Voice, it's just not free. The rates are here. I spot checked a few countries with Skype's rates and Google seems to be cheaper.
Oh, it's yet another thing limited to the USA. Carry on, nothing to see here.
No, it's great, since this is a US-based website.
You don't see a load of Americans complaining when there's a story about BT, do you? No, you don't.
What you're doing is similar to a Frenchman traveling to Hong Kong and complaining that all the cars have the steering wheel on the wrong side. It's pointless, like your very existence.
it's all irrelevant, as long as those loss leaders bring costumers to revenue/profit generating products.
I bet they also appreciate the customers who work outside of the theatrical clothing field.
Putting moderation advice in your
As the CTO of our small company, it bothers me that we use Skype internally. It is very convenient and productive to be able to have snap meetings and group discussions mid-day without having to go through the pain of calling everybody, etc.
But what bothers me is that all this information is going through a 3rd party's servers and I'm pretty paranoid. Ideally, I'd want a service that was cross platform, convenient, and provided a nice mix of calling, video sharing, and text chats across all platforms. Skype does an awful good job at this at the cost of privacy/security issues.
Now my small company does nothing that would be a tremendous surprise if revealed, but it does bother me to give this kind of information to *any* third party.
And when I say "all platforms", that's what I mean: Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iPhone, Blackberry, etc. which we get now with Skype.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
I don't want protocols that are implemented in a single app by a single vendor. What I want is to be able to use the chat app of MY CHOICE and talk to any other use of any other chat program, so that they can use the chat program of THEIR CHOICE.
Historically, this leads to a very dumbed down/least common denominator feature set, like the web.
That's the way email has been working forever, and it's a great model.
SMTP was designed in a different time when there was nothing to compete against. It was just taken for granted that everyone would implement SMTP for mail transfer. Well, assuming you had a dedicated connection, otherwise you had to use silly things like UUCP. The days when you could propose a protocol and people would just start using it are over.
But, why can't we adapt the "user@serviceprovider.tld" model of contacting people to the world of IM, instead of having to have 8 different chat accounts on 8 different service providers, none of whom will interoperate with anyone else?
Because the people proposing such systems are either private for-profit enterprises out to make a buck or small open source groups with no means to market their idea. There's so much noise out there.
I think the reason email works this way is because it is considered a first class internet service and essential to business. IM, not so much. You can do voice chat over the phone if you need it. There's no reason for a business to run an IM server.
Yup, your heard me, Global IP Solutions that was aquired last year by google was maker of the Engine that Skype was using.
Looks like they parted ways back in 2007 with Skype 3.2.
Looks like Skype really shot them selves in the foot on this one, Google just opensourced it with a BSD style license and soon Skype will be history.
Which may explain why they sold off to Microsoft reciently.
You can read more on my blog post.
http://videotechnology.blogspot.com/2011/06/webrtc-bringing-real-time.html
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
Close, but wrong. Google will only let you call out with an account that says it's from the U.S. I'm using it in Germany.
This really is a game changer.
The game changer is the "app." It installs on any device with Internet access. It doesn't need the browser. It doesn't need the "brand-name" OS.
That's called a Federated Protocol. Great federated protocols require great voice/video protocols FOSS and patent-free (just as email). This is the first step. Google Wave's Federated protocol layer atop standard XMPP appears to be the strongest direction toward what you're looking for.
Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.
"while this feature doesn't seem to have gotten a lot of attention so far"
I don't know about everyone else, but the name "WebRTC" doesn't attract my attention. In fact it sounds like something I'd rather avoid, like WebTV or WebMD..
Neat, but aren't we badly reinventing the wheel here??
I feel like browsers will offer in 15 years what my OS offers today....
Skype works in any country. Phone service is very, very expensive in some countries. Google voice is US only and has no penetration in these places. In fact I have never met anyone who uses google voice...
This is a standards effort coordinated between the IETF and W3C; see:
http://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/rtcweb/charter/
http://www.w3.org/2010/12/webrtc-charter.html
While Google is certainly involved, it's a lot more than them, with folks from many companies (including Skype, at least pre-MSFT) participating; see:
http://rtc-web.alvestrand.com/home/participants
This is actually largely happening. AIM and GTalk can interoperate. AIM and ICQ likewise. I think Yahoo and GTalk can also inter-operate.
Asterisk has been doing this right for a LONG time. Making a flavor that runs on the desktop, is packaged with a nice client and tied into a SIP directory service would give you Peer-to-Peer. That amount of work would be less than a week for one good dev. Within a month you'd have something Mr. N00b could handle.
Yeah, it doesn't run in a browser but it's also a real VOIP link with open standards and no corporate intervention.
Every rule has more than one consequence.