WebRTC

WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) is a free, open-source project that provides web browsers and mobile applications with real-time communication (RTC) via simple application programming interfaces (APIs). It allows audio and video communication to work inside web pages by allowing direct peer-to-peer communication, eliminating the need to install plugins or download native apps.[3] Supported by Apple, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Opera, WebRTC is being standardized through the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).[4]

WebRTC
Original author(s)Justin Uberti
Peter Thatcher
Initial release2011 (2011)
Stable release
1.0[1] / May 4, 2018 (2018-05-04)
Repositorywebrtc.googlesource.com
Written inC++,[2] JavaScript
LicenseBSD license
Websitewebrtc.org

Its mission is to "enable rich, high-quality RTC applications to be developed for the browser, mobile platforms, and IoT devices, and allow them all to communicate via a common set of protocols".[4]

History

In May 2010, Google bought Global IP Solutions or GIPS, a VoIP and videoconferencing software company that had developed many components required for RTC, such as codecs and echo cancellation techniques. Google open-sourced the GIPS technology and engaged with relevant standards bodies at the IETF and W3C to ensure industry consensus.[5][6] In May 2011, Google released an open-source project for browser-based real-time communication known as WebRTC.[7] This has been followed by ongoing work to standardize the relevant protocols in the IETF[8] and browser APIs in the W3C.[9]

In May 2011, Ericsson Labs built the first implementation of WebRTC using a modified WebKit library.[10] In October 2011, the W3C published its first draft for the spec.[11] WebRTC milestones include the first cross-browser video call (February 2013), first cross-browser data transfers (February 2014), and as of July 2014 Google Hangouts was "kind of" using WebRTC.[12]

The W3C draft API was based on preliminary work done in the WHATWG.[13] It was referred to as the ConnectionPeer API, and a pre-standards concept implementation was created at Ericsson Labs.[14] The WebRTC Working Group expects this specification to evolve significantly based on:

  • Outcomes of ongoing exchanges in the companion RTCWEB group at IETF[15] to define the set of protocols that, together with this document, define real-time communications in web browsers. While no one signaling protocol is mandated, SIP over WebSockets (RFC 7118) is often used partially due to the applicability of SIP to most of the envisaged communication scenarios as well as the availability of open-source software such as JsSIP.
  • Privacy issues that arise when exposing local capabilities and local streams
  • Technical discussions within the group, on implementing data channels in particular[16]
  • Experience gained through early experimentation
  • Feedback from other groups and individuals

In November 2017, the WebRTC 1.0 specification transitioned from Working Draft to Candidate Recommendation.[17]

Overview

Design

Major components of WebRTC include several JavaScript APIs:

  • getUserMedia acquires the audio and video media (e.g., by accessing a device's camera and microphone).[18]
  • RTCPeerConnection enables audio and video communication between peers. It performs signal processing, codec handling, peer-to-peer communication, security, and bandwidth management.[19]
  • RTCDataChannel allows bidirectional communication of arbitrary data between peers. It uses the same API as WebSockets and has very low latency.[20]

The WebRTC API also includes a statistics function:

  • getStats allows the web application to retrieve a set of statistics about WebRTC sessions. These statistics data are being described in a separate W3C document.[21]

The WebRTC API includes no provisions for signaling, that is discovering peers to connect to and determine how to establish connections among them. Applications use Interactive Connectivity Establishment for connections and somehow manage sessions, possibly relaying on any of Session Initiation Protocol, Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol, Message Queuing Telemetry Transport, Matrix (protocol), or another protocol. Signaling may depend on one or more servers.[22][23]

RFC 7874 requires implementations to provide PCMA/PCMU (RFC 3551), Telephone Event as DTMF (RFC 4733), and Opus (RFC 6716) audio codecs as minimum capabilities. The PeerConnection, data channel and media capture browser APIs are detailed in the W3C.

W3C is developing ORTC (Object Real-Time Communications) for WebRTC.[24]

Examples

Although initially developed for web browsers, WebRTC has applications for non-browser devices, including mobile platforms and IoT devices. Examples include browser-based VoIP telephony, also called cloud phones or web phones, which allow calls to be made and received from within a web browser, replacing the requirement to download and install a softphone.[25]

Support

WebRTC is supported by the following browsers:

GStreamer directly provides a free WebRTC implementation[31]

Concerns

In January 2015, TorrentFreak reported a serious security flaw in browsers that support WebRTC, saying that it compromised the security of VPN tunnels by exposing the true IP address of a user.[32] The IP address read requests are not visible in the browser's developer console, and they are not blocked by most ad blocking/privacy/security add-ons, enabling online tracking by advertisers and other entities despite precautions[33] (however the uBlock Origin add-on can fix this problem). As of September 2019, this WebRTC flaw still surfaces on Firefox 69.x and still by default exposes the user's internal IP address to the web.[34]

gollark: Yes, you would need some store-and-forward system.
gollark: No, they designed a slightly ridiculous alternative mode for extremely constrained situations.
gollark: https://matrix.org/blog/2019/03/12/breaking-the-100-bps-barrier-with-matrix-meshsim-coap-proxy
gollark: Matrix actually has some experimental mode for 100bps channels, apparently.
gollark: Troubling.

See also

References
  1. "WebRTC 1.0: Real-time Communication Between Browsers". World Wide Web Consortium. 27 September 2018. Retrieved 25 March 2019.
  2. "Src/webrtc - Git at Google".
  3. How WebRTC Is Revolutionizing Telephony. Blogs.trilogy-lte.com (2014-02-21). Retrieved on 2014-04-11.
  4. "WebRTC". WebRTC. Archived from the original on 9 January 2018. Retrieved 6 February 2018.
  5. "Are the WebRTC components from Google's acquisition of Global IP Solutions?". WebRTC. Retrieved 6 February 2018.
  6. Wauters, Robin (18 May 2010). "Google makes $68.2 million cash offer for Global IP Solutions". TechCrunch. Retrieved 6 February 2018.
  7. Harald Alvestrand (2011-05-31). "Google release of WebRTC source code". public-webrtc@w3.org. Retrieved 2012-09-12.
  8. Charter of the Real-Time Communication in WEB-browsers (rtcweb) working group
  9. "WebRTC 1.0: Real-time Communication Between Browsers". W3.org. Retrieved 2012-09-12.
  10. Stefan Håkansson; Stefan Ålund (26 May 2011). "Beyond HTML5: Experiment with Real-Time Communication in a Browser". Ericsson Research blog. Retrieved 6 February 2018.
  11. "WebRTC 1.0: Real-time Communication Between Browsers (W3C Working Draft 27 October 2011)". World Wide Web Consortium. 27 October 2011. Retrieved 6 February 2018.
  12. Nowak, Szymon. "WebRTC: So Much More Than Videoconferencing". GitHub. Retrieved 6 February 2018.
  13. "Introduction — HTML Standard". Whatwg.org. Retrieved 2012-09-12.
  14. "Beyond HTML5: Peer-to-Peer Conversational Video". Labs.ericsson.com. Retrieved 2012-09-12.
  15. "Rtcweb Status Pages". Tools.ietf.org. Retrieved 2012-09-12.
  16. "draft-jesup-rtcweb-data-protocol-00 - WebRTC Data Channel Protocol". Tools.ietf.org. Retrieved 2012-09-12.
  17. "WebRTC 1.0: Real-time Communication Between Browsers (W3C Candidate Recommendation 02 November 2017)". 2 November 2017.
  18. "Media Capture and Streams: getUserMedia". W3C. 2013-09-03. Retrieved 2014-01-15.
  19. "WebRTC: RTCPeerConnection Interface". W3C. 2013-09-10. Retrieved 2014-01-15.
  20. "WebRTC: RTCDataChannel". W3C. 2013-09-10. Retrieved 2014-01-15.
  21. "Identifiers for WebRTC's Statistics API". W3C. 2014-09-29.
  22. Tsahi Levent-Levi (13 April 2020). "WebRTC Server: What is it exactly?". BlogGeek.me.
  23. Tsahi Levent-Levi (13 November 2014). "Matrix.org and WebRTC: An Interview with Matthew Hodgson". BlogGeek.me.
  24. "W3C ORTC (Object Real-time Communications) Community Group".
  25. "Catch the Babelfish: Irish telco devises a new kind of cloud phone". November 2017.
  26. "ORTC API is now available in Microsoft Edge". Microsoft. 2015-09-18.
  27. Firefox Notes - Desktop. Mozilla.org (2013-06-25). Retrieved on 2014-04-11.
  28. "Safari 11.0". Apple Inc. Retrieved 6 June 2017.
  29. Opera News. blogs.opera.com (2013-11-19). Retrieved on 2015-09-17.
  30. Firefox Notes - Desktop. Mozilla.org (2013-09-17). Retrieved on 2014-08-04.
  31. "GStreamer 1.14 release notes". gstreamer.freedesktop.org. Retrieved 2019-12-19. since version 1.14
  32. Huge Security Flaw Leaks VPN Users’ Real IP-addresses TorrentFreak.com (2015-01-30). Retrieved on 2015-02-21.
  33. STUN IP Address requests for WebRTC Retrieved on 2015-02-21.
  34. Raymond Hill (26 March 2016). "Prevent WebRTC from leaking local IP address". uBlock Origin documentation. Retrieved 1 Sep 2016.

Further reading
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