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It seems there is a lot of confusion going on here. Firefox hello is a website that implements webRTC based video conferencing in a browser agnostic way. The

It seems there is a lot of confusion going on here. Firefox hello is a website that implements webRTC based video conferencing in a browser agnostic way. The "firefox hello" button that has shown up in recent versions of the browser is a bit of UI magic over an API to this website. The video conferencing code is not implemented in the browser. If you send a firefox hello link to a chrome user, it opens the webpage when they click on it instead of the UI element. I actually think it's really neat, and have replaced skype with it since it works so widely and doesn't require everyone to have an account to use it.

MichaelGG 12y ago
This is a like a case study in how to [not] handle messaging towards technical users. There's no issue here, but it just appears like Firefox is now shipping apps or something, rather than essentially a bookmark.
- knodi123 12y ago
  that's certainly what I came to complain about, until I read the comment you replied to.
- jonchang 12y ago
  What led you to believe that the linked page was targeted towards technical users?
  - MichaelGG 12y ago
    Not saying it was. Just that FF has a lot of sensitive, technical, users, so Mozilla has to deal with this insanity it looks like. Thus, they might consider having a "how it works" or "why" section to calm such users.
    - longlivegnu 12y ago
      Can't they just look at the source code?
pgl 12y ago
> Firefox hello is a website that implements webRTC based video conferencing in a browser agnostic way. It's very misleading. The page is full of quotes like these: "All you need is Firefox" "Get Firefox to get started" "Want to start using Hello? All you need is Firefox" "Get Firefox and start your first conversation"
- espadrine 12y ago
  You do need Firefox to start the conversation. I believe it is used to authenticate the user[0]. Then the link you get can be used on any browser. If I'm wrong, I'd love to know how to start a conversation from a different browser. [0]: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Loop/Architecture https://wiki.mozilla.org/Loop/Architecture
reidrac 12y ago
I have a success story with that. I moved abroad and I have a chat with my parents using Skype from time to time. After the Microsoft acquisition Skype had to be upgraded and the old version stopped working. My parents aren't tech-savvy really and I failed to diagnose their problem remotely, so I tried https://talky.io/ https://talky.io/ (just because I watched Sam Dutton talk about WebRTC and he used that web for a demo). It worked (to be completely fair, slightly worse than an average Skype session), and it kind of blew my mind. My parents weren't impressed though, when I explained them how amazing was that we were video conferencing using a website and open standards. EDIT: typos
- Sir_Substance 12y ago
  This is exactly the sort of thing it is fantastic at. Being able to email or SMS people link and have it Just Work without passwords or accounts or port forwarding is actually really nifty, and exactly what you need to start a chat with grandma. For the record, my experience has been that firefox hello is superior in quality to skype.
  - jamiesonbecker 12y ago
    Awesome testimonial. If it's superior (or even close to comparable) to skype, I'm switching immediately.
- rquirk 12y ago
  The problem I had doing something similar was getting the link to them. You need some other out-of-band communication method, whereas with skype you just agree to a time of the week when to sign on and call each other. Email sort-of works, but not as easily as the central logged-in lobby system.
  - ams6110 12y ago
    Would be very easy to have a website that coordinated this. Even pastebin would do pretty easily.

MichaelGG 12y ago

This is a like a case study in how to [not] handle messaging towards technical users. There's no issue here, but it just appears like Firefox is now shipping apps or something, rather than essentially a bookmark.

knodi123 12y ago
that's certainly what I came to complain about, until I read the comment you replied to.
jonchang 12y ago
What led you to believe that the linked page was targeted towards technical users?
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  Not saying it was. Just that FF has a lot of sensitive, technical, users, so Mozilla has to deal with this insanity it looks like. Thus, they might consider having a "how it works" or "why" section to calm such users.
  - longlivegnu 12y ago
    Can't they just look at the source code?

pgl 12y ago

> Firefox hello is a website that implements webRTC based video conferencing in a browser agnostic way. It's very misleading. The page is full of quotes like these: "All you need is Firefox" "Get Firefox to get started" "Want to start using Hello? All you need is Firefox" "Get Firefox and start your first conversation"

espadrine 12y ago
You do need Firefox to start the conversation. I believe it is used to authenticate the user[0]. Then the link you get can be used on any browser. If I'm wrong, I'd love to know how to start a conversation from a different browser. [0]: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Loop/Architecture https://wiki.mozilla.org/Loop/Architecture

reidrac 12y ago

I have a success story with that. I moved abroad and I have a chat with my parents using Skype from time to time. After the Microsoft acquisition Skype had to be upgraded and the old version stopped working. My parents aren't tech-savvy really and I failed to diagnose their problem remotely, so I tried https://talky.io/ https://talky.io/ (just because I watched Sam Dutton talk about WebRTC and he used that web for a demo). It worked (to be completely fair, slightly worse than an average Skype session), and it kind of blew my mind. My parents weren't impressed though, when I explained them how amazing was that we were video conferencing using a website and open standards. EDIT: typos

Sir_Substance 12y ago
This is exactly the sort of thing it is fantastic at. Being able to email or SMS people link and have it Just Work without passwords or accounts or port forwarding is actually really nifty, and exactly what you need to start a chat with grandma. For the record, my experience has been that firefox hello is superior in quality to skype.
- jamiesonbecker 12y ago
  Awesome testimonial. If it's superior (or even close to comparable) to skype, I'm switching immediately.
rquirk 12y ago
The problem I had doing something similar was getting the link to them. You need some other out-of-band communication method, whereas with skype you just agree to a time of the week when to sign on and call each other. Email sort-of works, but not as easily as the central logged-in lobby system.
- ams6110 12y ago
  Would be very easy to have a website that coordinated this. Even pastebin would do pretty easily.