By Master Software Solutions - Technology Simplified

01/05/2016

Some of the topics produce much interest of the people on the internet and even debates can be started on such topics and WebRTC is one of them. Despite the fact that developers and IT professionals go on with the argument about the technical facts, there seems to be little uncertainty that WebRTC is the future platform of real-time communications between the applications. Between the flurries of excitement, many people are still confused about WebRTC and the working nature of WebRTC.
WebRTC is a framework that enables real-time communication link between web and mobile browsers using HTML5 and JavaScript APIs. The W3C is in-charge of normalizing the APIs while the IETF is developing the essential connection protocols. It has not yet been normalized but browsers such as Chrome and Firefox by default carry vendor-specific implementations. This means that normal users don’t have to hassle with plug-in downloads to make an audio or video call. All that is the requirement is a WebRTC enabled web browser.
WebRTC has various uses but the regular APIs are:
1. Get User Media: As the name tells, this enables contact to the camera and microphone on the user's device.
2. Peer Connection: This is used to enable Real-time communication among peers or linking the end-user and a WebRTC server.
3. Data Channel: This API can be used to transfer any type of data between 2 users such as files, pictures, videos etc.
Though most of the excitement about WebRTC is its audio and video managing capabilities, it is not essentially limited to those functions. For example: WebRTC could be used by a social networking website to capture a photo of new users to set as their profile picture instantly rather than waiting for uploading an image.
The main advantage of WebRTC is that developers can include RTC capabilities with their apps with just a small amount of JavaScript and HTML5. In addition, WebRTC uses standard APIs (promotes interoperability) and avoids codec downloads, which reduces the risk of a malware attacks. WebRTC is very secure because SRTP protocol is used to carry media by default. It carries support for ICE, STUN and TURN protocols allowing it to pass through NAT devices without difficulty.
The WebRTC’s long-term vision for users is to make able to talk to each other, even though they are using different web browsers on different operating systems and somewhat this vision is completed. Even if it is not so far totally supported on mobile platforms, it's only a matter of time before tablets and smart phones are also included. In actual fact, once WebRTC has been standardized and adopted widely any hardware with a web browser (Smart TVs with built-in cameras for example) could possibly support real-time communications.
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This article is about the working nature of WebRTC framework which enables the Real Time Communication feature of the apps. The writer of this article is an experienced mobile app developer since last 3 years.