Firefox 22 browser update supplies web-calling capability
Mozilla Tuesday shipped Firefox 22, which enables the in-browser audio-video calling standard WebRTC, and switches on a new JavaScript module that promises to speed up web apps.
The update also includes patches for 17 security vulnerabilities, seven of them marked “critical.”
Mozilla highlighted several of the changes in Firefox 22, notably the default support for WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communications), an open-source API (application programming interface) that web applications can call for in-browser audio and video communications without requiring specialized plug-ins like Adobe’s Flash. WebRTC traces its roots to Google, which acquired the VP8 video codec in 2010 from a company called On2, open-sourced the technology, and pushed for its adoption as a standard by the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C). Mozilla engineers have been also working on the project to implement WebRTC in Firefox.
