The WebRTC standards landscape is home to one of the fastest evolving communities on the web. One of the biggest challenges this creates is that of compatibility and interoperability. Here is an overview of what this is up to today and how to stay up-to-date as this continues to evolve.
At the time this chapter was written, WebRTC was supported as default by Chrome and Firefox on mainstream PC Operating Systems such as Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. And most importantly, these two key implementations have been shown to communicate well with each other through a range of interoperability tests.
Tip
Have a look at the Hello Chrome, it's Firefox calling! blog post at https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/02/hello-chrome-its-firefox-calling/.
WebRTC is also available for Chrome and Firefox on the Android platform; however, currently you must manually configure certain settings to enable this functionality.
Here are the key steps you need to enable this for Chrome. These are from the Chrome for Android release notes posted on the discuss-webrtc forum available at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/discuss-webrtc/uFOMhd-AG0A:
To enable WebRTC on Chrome for Android:
Type in
chrome://flags/in the omnibox to access the flags.Scroll about a third down and enable the Enable WebRTC flag.
You will be asked to relaunch the browser at the bottom of the page in order for the flag to take effect.
Enabling WebRTC using Chrome flags on Android
Here are the key steps you need to enable WebRTC for Firefox. These are from a post on the Mozilla Hacks blog about the new Firefox for Android release available at https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/04/webrtc-update-our-first-implementation-will-be-in-release-soon-welcome-to-the-party-but-please-watch-your-head/:
You can enable it by setting both the media.navigator.enabled pref and the media.peerconnection.enabled pref to "true" (browse to about:config and search for media.navigator.enabled and media.peerconnection.enabled in the list of prefs).
Enabling WebRTC using Firefox settings on Android
Opera has been an active supporter of the WebRTC movement and has implemented early versions of this standard in previous releases of their browsers. But at the time this chapter was written, they were working to port their collection of browsers to the WebKit platform based on the open Chromium project. So, until this migration activity is complete, their support for WebRTC is currently listed as unavailable.
However, since the Chromium project is closely related to Chrome, which is also built upon the WebKit platform, it is expected that Opera's support for WebRTC will develop quickly after this migration is complete.
Microsoft has proposed its own alternative to WebRTC named Customizable, Ubiquitous Real-Time Communication over the Web (CU-RTC-Web). Have a look at http://html5labs.interoperabilitybridges.com/cu-rtc-web/cu-rtc-web.htm.
As yet, it has not announced any timeline as to when Internet Explorer may support WebRTC, but it is currently possible to use WebRTC within Internet Explorer using the Chrome Frame solution available at https://developers.google.com/chrome/chrome-frame/.
Microsoft has also recently released prototypes that show interoperability in the form of a voice chat application connecting Chrome on a Mac and IE10 on Windows available at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/interoperability/archive/2013/01/17/ms-open-tech-publishes-html5-labs-prototype-of-a-customizable-ubiquitous-real-time-communication-over-the-web-api-proposal.aspx. This shows that one way or another, Microsoft understands the significance of the WebRTC movement, and it is actively engaging in the standards discussions.
Apple has not yet made any announcement about when they plan to support WebRTC in Safari on either OS X or iOS. So far, the only application that has made WebRTC available on iOS is an early proof of concept browser created by Ericsson Labs named Bowser, and is available at http://labs.ericsson.com/apps/bowser.
Note
Bowser is based upon a very early experimental version of the WebRTC standards, and it does not interoperate with any of the other mainstream web browsers.
However, as Safari is also based upon the WebKit platform just like Chrome and Opera, there should be no major technical barriers to prevent Apple from enabling WebRTC on both their mobile and PC browsers.
It is also important to note that WebRTC is not a single API, but really a collection of APIs and protocols defined by a variety of Working Groups, and that the support for each of these are developing at different rates on different browsers and operating systems.
A great way to see where the latest level of support has reached is through services such as http://caniuse.com, which tracks broad adoption of modern APIs across multiple browsers and operating systems.
And, you should also check out the open project at http://www.webrtc.org, which is supported by Google, Mozilla, and Opera. This project provides a set of C++ libraries that are designed to help browser and application developers quickly and easily implement standards compliant with WebRTC functionality. It is also a useful site to find the latest information on browser support and some great WebRTC demos.