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Firefox and Chrome Can Talk To Each Other
The Firefox and Chrome teams have announced that their respective browsers can now communicate with each other via WebRTC for the purpose of audio and video communication without needing a third-party plugin.
WebRTC is a new set of technologies that brings clear crisp voice, sharp high-definition (HD) video and low-delay communication to the web browser. From the very beginning, this joint WebRTC effort was embraced by the open web community, including engineers from the Chrome and Firefox teams. The common goal was to help developers offer rich, secure communications, integrated directly into their web applications. In order to succeed, a web-based communications platform needs to work across browsers. Thanks to the work and participation of the W3C and IETF communities in developing the platform, Chrome and Firefox can now communicate by using standard technologies such as the Opus and VP8 codecs for audio and video, DTLS-SRTP for encryption, and ICE for networking. To try this yourself, you’ll need desktop Chrome 25 Beta and Firefox Nightly for Desktop. In Firefox, you'll need to go to about:config and set the media.peerconnection.enabled pref to "true." Then head over to the WebRTC demo site and start calling."
It is a protocol and API developed at the IETF and W3C for real time communications (RTC) by companies like Google, Mozilla, but also Microsoft.
It's called WebRTC, but it isn't specific to the web. There are also or will be libraries for people who want create desktop or mobile app(lication)s.
You can use it to easily build applications that need some kind of realtime communication like audio- or video-chat.
It uses a peer2peer protocol like VoIP or Skype and encrypted by default.
The peer2peer protocol can also be used for other data and supports NAT-traversal and going through relays.
New things are always on the horizon
Other than finding each other to start the conversation, I agree. The one thing Skype still has going for it is the directory services.
More to the point it will open up the ability to write skype-like apps for many website, forums, etc.
The security and privacy aspect that skype used to provide has been eroded since Microsoft took ownership, and started routing all calls through their own servers, and refusing to answer questions about monitoring. (One half suspects that Microsoft's ownership was government funded).
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
An excuse for bloat.
I'm going to rip all of this crap out of Firefox and make it just a light, efficient web browser. I shall call it "Phoenix".
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
In short yes:
http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/streaming/screenshare/
New things are always on the horizon
Its hard to tell if you're kidding or not, but on the off chance you aren't, web browsers have been opening sockets to arbitrary end points since the day they were invented.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
A web browser that cherry picks which W3C standards to implement? I think you should call it "Internet Explorer".
Just as a car is for driving. You could try and make a car fly as well, but it will fly only for a few seconds before gravity kicks in.
Same goes for software. Years of experience learned me to prevent this kind of 'additional functionality', also called "function creep". Next to that, I can think up tons of vulnerabilities, such as implanting 'bugs' on pages, analog to a hidden electret mic, or pre recorded spam calls.
Note that I really support this type of innovation, but please, not in browsers.
KERNEL PANIC -SIGFAULT AT ADDRESS #51A54D07
Firefox: ~44MB
Chrome: ~96MB
IE: ~20GB and counting