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i just hope WebRTC Insertable Streams spec matures 10x faster now - https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/6321945865879552 https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/6

i just hope WebRTC Insertable Streams spec matures 10x faster now - https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/6321945865879552 https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/6321945865879552 . True end-to-end video conferencin privacy through the browser! This is the time when its truly needed. Firefox, Chrome and Edge should just sit in a room and not come out till its done.

bilal4hmed 7y ago
also Safari
- capableweb 7y ago
  Apple has proven with previous actions and non-investments in the web platform that they are not interested in contributing to something like that and would rather focus on their own proprietary services/applications. Right now, they seem to be doing the bare minimum to not receive too much criticism from developers who are stuck on Apple devices.
  - maxwell 7y ago
    Hence the antitrust investigation. https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU05/20190716/109793/HHRG-116-JU05-20190716-SD036.pdf https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU05/20190716/109793/HHRG...
    - capableweb 7y ago
      I hadn't seen that before, thanks for sharing. First question: "Does Apple permit iPhone users to uninstall Safari? If yes, please describe the steps a user would need to take in order to do so. If no, please explain why not" Apple answers that users cannot, and adds: "The App Store provides Apple’s users with access to third party apps, including web browsers. Browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge and others are available for users to download" While forgetting to mention that all "Apple's policies require all iOS apps that browse the web to use the iOS built-in iOS WebKit-based rendering framework and WebKit JavaScript" [https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/], effectively meaning it's just a skin on top of WebKit, which is controlled by Apple. I wish something good comes out of that investigation, but realistically, I don't see it happening.
      - maxwell 7y ago
        Seems like a straightforward retread of U.S. v. Microsoft. 1. Can you delete Safari on iOS? No, but the "App Store provides Apple’s users with access to third party apps, including web browsers." 2. Can you set a third-party browser as the default browser? No. 3. How about for opening links in bundled apps? No, see questions 1 and 2. 4. Okay, so can these third-party browsers include their own rendering engine? No, because "Apple can provide security updates to all our users quickly and accurately, no matter which browser they decide to download from the App Store." 5. What if a third-party browser introduced better security/privacy features? See question 4 and it's "not our experience that competing web browsers have typically offered enhanced privacy or security that would protect users as adequately as our WebKit protections." 6. What features does Apple cut off to third-party browsers? * WebRTC * Service Workers * Intelligent Tracking Protection * Fullscreen API
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        You may be interested in the comments from when this was first posted here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21587191 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21587191
kodablah 7y ago
I see nothing in the specification that specifically mentions encryption. Are there any concerns about performance of in-JS streaming encryption? Does the encoder/decoder take promises and are they expected to use the subtle crypto APIs in the browser which return promises?
- capableweb 7y ago
  No, because the specification is more general than that. The specification is about being able to add a input/output transform step, so you can add encryption on top of WebRTC streams, via this new API. JavaScript encryption/decryption seems to work fine for the most basic use cases, but if you have many streams you need to do encryption/decryption for you, you probably want to use native browser APIs for it or WebAssembly.
  - kodablah 7y ago
    Right, I understand it's more general, but there is a use cases section in the explainer that putting this there might have value. In other cases where encryption is used (e.g. fetch, webrtc itself, etc), often we ask the browser to do it due to, among other things, the performance benefit of not doing it in JS or WASM. I'd have to test using window.crypto.subtle.encrypt or tweetnacl something to check the overhead (I do see the webcodec examples show a write/readable stream which allows promise-based encryption). Arguably this could have been done at the conn level w/ raw RTC data instead of the media stream level so I wouldn't have to handle data channels separately, but I see the value in sharing with other use cases of client-side stream manip.
telesilla 7y ago
>Firefox, Chrome and Edge Edge is now Chromium, you need to invite Safari.

bilal4hmed 7y ago

also Safari

capableweb 7y ago
Apple has proven with previous actions and non-investments in the web platform that they are not interested in contributing to something like that and would rather focus on their own proprietary services/applications. Right now, they seem to be doing the bare minimum to not receive too much criticism from developers who are stuck on Apple devices.
- maxwell 7y ago
  Hence the antitrust investigation. https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU05/20190716/109793/HHRG-116-JU05-20190716-SD036.pdf https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU05/20190716/109793/HHRG...
  - capableweb 7y ago
    I hadn't seen that before, thanks for sharing. First question: "Does Apple permit iPhone users to uninstall Safari? If yes, please describe the steps a user would need to take in order to do so. If no, please explain why not" Apple answers that users cannot, and adds: "The App Store provides Apple’s users with access to third party apps, including web browsers. Browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge and others are available for users to download" While forgetting to mention that all "Apple's policies require all iOS apps that browse the web to use the iOS built-in iOS WebKit-based rendering framework and WebKit JavaScript" [https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/], effectively meaning it's just a skin on top of WebKit, which is controlled by Apple. I wish something good comes out of that investigation, but realistically, I don't see it happening.
    - maxwell 7y ago
      Seems like a straightforward retread of U.S. v. Microsoft. 1. Can you delete Safari on iOS? No, but the "App Store provides Apple’s users with access to third party apps, including web browsers." 2. Can you set a third-party browser as the default browser? No. 3. How about for opening links in bundled apps? No, see questions 1 and 2. 4. Okay, so can these third-party browsers include their own rendering engine? No, because "Apple can provide security updates to all our users quickly and accurately, no matter which browser they decide to download from the App Store." 5. What if a third-party browser introduced better security/privacy features? See question 4 and it's "not our experience that competing web browsers have typically offered enhanced privacy or security that would protect users as adequately as our WebKit protections." 6. What features does Apple cut off to third-party browsers? * WebRTC * Service Workers * Intelligent Tracking Protection * Fullscreen API
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      You may be interested in the comments from when this was first posted here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21587191 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21587191

kodablah 7y ago

I see nothing in the specification that specifically mentions encryption. Are there any concerns about performance of in-JS streaming encryption? Does the encoder/decoder take promises and are they expected to use the subtle crypto APIs in the browser which return promises?

capableweb 7y ago
No, because the specification is more general than that. The specification is about being able to add a input/output transform step, so you can add encryption on top of WebRTC streams, via this new API. JavaScript encryption/decryption seems to work fine for the most basic use cases, but if you have many streams you need to do encryption/decryption for you, you probably want to use native browser APIs for it or WebAssembly.
- kodablah 7y ago
  Right, I understand it's more general, but there is a use cases section in the explainer that putting this there might have value. In other cases where encryption is used (e.g. fetch, webrtc itself, etc), often we ask the browser to do it due to, among other things, the performance benefit of not doing it in JS or WASM. I'd have to test using window.crypto.subtle.encrypt or tweetnacl something to check the overhead (I do see the webcodec examples show a write/readable stream which allows promise-based encryption). Arguably this could have been done at the conn level w/ raw RTC data instead of the media stream level so I wouldn't have to handle data channels separately, but I see the value in sharing with other use cases of client-side stream manip.

telesilla 7y ago

>Firefox, Chrome and Edge Edge is now Chromium, you need to invite Safari.