Under the hood, WebRTC enables a basic peer-to-peer connection between two browsers. This is the heart of everything that happens with WebRTC. It is the first truly peer-to-peer connection inside a browser. This also means that anything you can do with peer connections can be easily extended to WebRTC. Many applications today use peer-to-peer capabilities, such as file sharing, text chat, multiplayer gaming, and even currencies. There are already hundreds of great examples of these types of applications working right inside the browser.

Most of these applications have one thing in common—they need a low-latency, high-performance connection between two users. WebRTC makes use of low-level protocols to deliver high-speed performance that could not be achieved otherwise. This speeds up data flow across the network, enabling large amounts of data to be transferred in a short amount of time.

WebRTC also enables a secure connection between two users to enable a higher level of privacy between them. Traffic traveling across a peer connection will not only be encrypted, but will also take a direct route to the other user. This means that packets sent in different connections might take entirely different routes over the Internet. This gives anonymity to users of WebRTC applications that is otherwise hard to guarantee when connecting to an application server.

This is just a subset of the types of applications enabled by WebRTC. Since WebRTC is built on the foundations of JavaScript and the Web, it can benefit many existing applications today. After reading this book, you should have the knowledge you need to create innovative WebRTC applications on your own!