6 ms·

Show HN: Group video chat with no signups or downloads

91 points by vasanthv 8y ago

tendencydriven 8y ago
This is a great project, and really quite useful. Any way to support desktop sharing, or is that out of scope (as you'd most likely require a plugin, like Appear.in and such). Thank you for releasing the source code as well, I've been wanting to learn more about WebRTC and it looks remarkably simple to get started with!
- vasanthv 8y ago
  Yes currently desktop sharing is only available in Chrome. I am planning to enable it only for the supported browsers soon, as I don't want anyone to download a plugin for this purpose.
  - villgax 8y ago
    It works fine with Firefox without extensions, you can take a look at MuazKhan's demo for inspiration.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
jsiepkes 8y ago
Looks cool! Though I don't really see any distinctive features which sets it apart from Jitsi meet ( https://meet.jit.si https://meet.jit.si ) which is also open source?
- vasanthv 8y ago
  Jitsi Meet does not work in mobile without downloading their app, but this one does. Just open the URL and it just works from the browser.
  - itake 8y ago
    Jitsi Meet also provides support for screen sharing.
  - Vinnl 8y ago
    That is sweet! How do you plan on financing this?
- cyborgx7 8y ago
  I feel like sometimes you have to develop the thing you want, and can't find anywhere, for people to tell you that it already exists.
  - simplify 8y ago
    Yeah seriously, it's like we need a "Fake Show HN:" to surface these apps that are already out there.
    - gitgud 8y ago
      Well the problem is people making things that they don't know exist, so "Ask: HN" would already suit this I suppose...
vidanay 8y ago
Does it traverse corporate firewalls? I use appear.in a lot, but all users must be either inside the firewall (VPN works) or outside the firewall, there cannot be a mix.
- hardwaresofton 8y ago
  BTW appear.in went login-only sometime recently (I think? I used it yesterday and was surprised), no more free anonymous rooms :( jitsi meet still has free anon rooms though
  - vidanay 8y ago
    https://appearin.helpscoutdocs.com/article/249-room-doesnt-exist https://appearin.helpscoutdocs.com/article/249-room-doesnt-e...
  - j1elo 8y ago
    appear.in went login-only very recently, and they only allow for a single room name, which is a pain in the * (although it's free so I can't complain...) I'm using talky.io more since the change. Works pretty well, and they allow to start the call with audio only, which is something appear doesn't do.
    - hardwaresofton 8y ago
      Ahhh -- yeah, I didn't blame them too much, since of course they need to monetize somehow or maybe even were being crushed under the server load (giving bad service even for free might piss off people or invite bad press). In the end a bunch of these companies are really just using WebRTC under the covers + some improvements/management on their side, so they should be avoiding most of the load (especially since most of them say they can't support >4 people in a room or whatever since that's the traditional limitation of truly p2p webrtc implementations). thanks for the pointer to talky.io, I also took note of some of the other suggestions in this thread, will be using them as well.
ada1981 8y ago
The link wasn’t copiable for me without grabbing it from the address bar. Is it possible to record and capture the video?
melicerte 8y ago
What is the license of the open source code ?
- vasanthv 8y ago
  WTFPL
SamWhited 8y ago
Doesn't work at all for me. On Firefox I allow camera and mic and just get a black screen, on Chromium it doesn't even ask for camera and mic permissions, but even if I manually enable them it gives me a popup saying that it requires access to them (that same popup never showed up on firefox before I had enabled them, but I didn't outright reject it either, so maybe it just doesn't show until it thinks it asked and I didn't notice it). Nothing on the console, but I know nothing about front end web development so I'm afraid I probably can't provide a useful bug report.
- hamslamwich 8y ago
  Similar user experience comment from me: for whatever settings i have on Chrome, all i get when entering is a black screen and a popup that says "This site will not work without microphone/camera access". Not a deal-breaker, but definitely could be a friendlier/welcoming experience
mcjiggerlog 8y ago
I made a similar app recently - https://p2p.chat https://p2p.chat Code is available here - https://github.com/tom-james-watson/p2p.chat/ https://github.com/tom-james-watson/p2p.chat/ (Warning - definitely pretty alpha still)
yakshaving_jgt 8y ago
How will you charge for this? Because if it's free, it won't stick around for long.
- vasanthv 8y ago
  Running is cost is negligible. - Paying for the domain (19$/yr). - Using Zeit now's free plan for hosting. - Very low load on the server as it is P2P. - No database. Guess I can run it for free. :)
  - mrgreenfur 8y ago
    Thanks for making it public and open! Might use parts of it in an upcoming project.
- buwka 8y ago
  Vasanthv put it on GitHub as open source so I don't think they have much of an intent of monetizing the service. I think the lasting impact is that it allows others to easily set up video chat on their own servers.
omk 8y ago
Would be a good idea to remove the google tracker in the github source code. I've created an issue. https://github.com/vasanthv/hello/issues/16 https://github.com/vasanthv/hello/issues/16
- vasanthv 8y ago
  Sure will do. Thanks for pointing out.
  - Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
    Thanks for removing it from GitHub. Would you also consider removing it from the deployed site, please?
Angostura 8y ago
Reminds me of the early days of Tinychat.
sabbakeynejad 8y ago
Really nice! Might be a good idea to think a little bit about how to communicate your brand. Many users will have no idea if they ever used your product or not. You should use the network effect of group calls to advertise your product. Maybe just stick your logo in the top right corner?
asymmetric 8y ago
Looks great! Are the p2p video streams end-to-end encrypted?
- pedalpete 8y ago
  webrtc has end-to-end encryption by default built into the browser
jeremija 8y ago
I've also made a similar app a while ago: https://peercalls.com https://peercalls.com Source is available at: https://github.com/jeremija/peer-calls https://github.com/jeremija/peer-calls
wingerlang 8y ago
I am video chatting a lot, and for some reason desktop-to-desktop in FB Messenger always struggle (mobile is fine usually). This worked instantly, nice. Although I did notice my internet got cut off twice, usually this happens when I download torrents. Could the P2P of this be the reason for this?

91 points by vasanthv 8y ago

This is a great project, and really quite useful. Any way to support desktop sharing, or is that out of scope (as you'd most likely require a plugin, like Appear.in and such). Thank you for releasing the source code as well, I've been wanting to learn more about WebRTC and it looks remarkably simple to get started with!

vasanthv 8y ago
Yes currently desktop sharing is only available in Chrome. I am planning to enable it only for the supported browsers soon, as I don't want anyone to download a plugin for this purpose.
- villgax 8y ago
  It works fine with Firefox without extensions, you can take a look at MuazKhan's demo for inspiration.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

jsiepkes 8y ago

Looks cool! Though I don't really see any distinctive features which sets it apart from Jitsi meet ( https://meet.jit.si https://meet.jit.si ) which is also open source?

vasanthv 8y ago
Jitsi Meet does not work in mobile without downloading their app, but this one does. Just open the URL and it just works from the browser.
- itake 8y ago
  Jitsi Meet also provides support for screen sharing.
- Vinnl 8y ago
  That is sweet! How do you plan on financing this?
cyborgx7 8y ago
I feel like sometimes you have to develop the thing you want, and can't find anywhere, for people to tell you that it already exists.
- simplify 8y ago
  Yeah seriously, it's like we need a "Fake Show HN:" to surface these apps that are already out there.
  - gitgud 8y ago
    Well the problem is people making things that they don't know exist, so "Ask: HN" would already suit this I suppose...

vidanay 8y ago

Does it traverse corporate firewalls? I use appear.in a lot, but all users must be either inside the firewall (VPN works) or outside the firewall, there cannot be a mix.

hardwaresofton 8y ago
BTW appear.in went login-only sometime recently (I think? I used it yesterday and was surprised), no more free anonymous rooms :( jitsi meet still has free anon rooms though
- vidanay 8y ago
  https://appearin.helpscoutdocs.com/article/249-room-doesnt-exist https://appearin.helpscoutdocs.com/article/249-room-doesnt-e...
- j1elo 8y ago
  appear.in went login-only very recently, and they only allow for a single room name, which is a pain in the * (although it's free so I can't complain...) I'm using talky.io more since the change. Works pretty well, and they allow to start the call with audio only, which is something appear doesn't do.
  - hardwaresofton 8y ago
    Ahhh -- yeah, I didn't blame them too much, since of course they need to monetize somehow or maybe even were being crushed under the server load (giving bad service even for free might piss off people or invite bad press). In the end a bunch of these companies are really just using WebRTC under the covers + some improvements/management on their side, so they should be avoiding most of the load (especially since most of them say they can't support >4 people in a room or whatever since that's the traditional limitation of truly p2p webrtc implementations). thanks for the pointer to talky.io, I also took note of some of the other suggestions in this thread, will be using them as well.

ada1981 8y ago

The link wasn’t copiable for me without grabbing it from the address bar. Is it possible to record and capture the video?

melicerte 8y ago

What is the license of the open source code ?

vasanthv 8y ago
WTFPL

SamWhited 8y ago

Doesn't work at all for me. On Firefox I allow camera and mic and just get a black screen, on Chromium it doesn't even ask for camera and mic permissions, but even if I manually enable them it gives me a popup saying that it requires access to them (that same popup never showed up on firefox before I had enabled them, but I didn't outright reject it either, so maybe it just doesn't show until it thinks it asked and I didn't notice it). Nothing on the console, but I know nothing about front end web development so I'm afraid I probably can't provide a useful bug report.

hamslamwich 8y ago
Similar user experience comment from me: for whatever settings i have on Chrome, all i get when entering is a black screen and a popup that says "This site will not work without microphone/camera access". Not a deal-breaker, but definitely could be a friendlier/welcoming experience

mcjiggerlog 8y ago

I made a similar app recently - https://p2p.chat https://p2p.chat Code is available here - https://github.com/tom-james-watson/p2p.chat/ https://github.com/tom-james-watson/p2p.chat/ (Warning - definitely pretty alpha still)

yakshaving_jgt 8y ago

How will you charge for this? Because if it's free, it won't stick around for long.

vasanthv 8y ago
Running is cost is negligible. - Paying for the domain (19$/yr). - Using Zeit now's free plan for hosting. - Very low load on the server as it is P2P. - No database. Guess I can run it for free. :)
- mrgreenfur 8y ago
  Thanks for making it public and open! Might use parts of it in an upcoming project.
buwka 8y ago
Vasanthv put it on GitHub as open source so I don't think they have much of an intent of monetizing the service. I think the lasting impact is that it allows others to easily set up video chat on their own servers.

omk 8y ago

Would be a good idea to remove the google tracker in the github source code. I've created an issue. https://github.com/vasanthv/hello/issues/16 https://github.com/vasanthv/hello/issues/16

vasanthv 8y ago
Sure will do. Thanks for pointing out.
- Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
  Thanks for removing it from GitHub. Would you also consider removing it from the deployed site, please?

Angostura 8y ago

Reminds me of the early days of Tinychat.

sabbakeynejad 8y ago

Really nice! Might be a good idea to think a little bit about how to communicate your brand. Many users will have no idea if they ever used your product or not. You should use the network effect of group calls to advertise your product. Maybe just stick your logo in the top right corner?

asymmetric 8y ago

Looks great! Are the p2p video streams end-to-end encrypted?

pedalpete 8y ago
webrtc has end-to-end encryption by default built into the browser

jeremija 8y ago

I've also made a similar app a while ago: https://peercalls.com https://peercalls.com Source is available at: https://github.com/jeremija/peer-calls https://github.com/jeremija/peer-calls

wingerlang 8y ago

I am video chatting a lot, and for some reason desktop-to-desktop in FB Messenger always struggle (mobile is fine usually). This worked instantly, nice. Although I did notice my internet got cut off twice, usually this happens when I download torrents. Could the P2P of this be the reason for this?