Mozilla updated its Firefox browser today with full Web Real Time Communications (WebRTC) and new JavaScript capabilities, adding support for “rich activities” like video calls and online games.
Mozilla has been working on integrating the WebRTC protocol, which eliminates the need for separate browser plug-ins to enable those rich functions, for some time.
And asm.js, the new JavaScript protocol, is “a supercharged subset of JavaScript” that loads quickly and enables FireFox to run intense applications such as games and photo-processing in real-time without the need for plug-ins.
It’s all part of Mozilla’s plan to “unlock the power of the web.”
Firefox is rich
WebRTC enables web apps to support video calls, voice calls and file sharing without any additional software or third-party plugins, Mozilla wrote yesterday
It works across mobile and desktop browsers, according to the company.
“Rich activities like games and video calls were some of the last remaining challenges to prove that the Web is a capable and powerful platform for complex tasks,” Mozilla wrote. “We conquered these challenges as part of Mozilla’s mission to advance the Web as the platform for openness, innovation and opportunity for all.”
With WebRTC in particular the company hopes to “improve interoperability and end fragmentation” across the web.
“With Web Real-Time Communications (WebRTC), it’s easy to integrate these features into Web apps with just a few lines of code so developers can create more rich and interactive websites for people to experience across browsers,” it continued.
Gaming goes native
Firefox’s JavaScript advancements have been in the works for some time as well.
Mozilla was showing the optimized JavaScript engine off in March in collaboration with Epic Games, creators of the pervasive Unreal Engine for video game development.
At the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco, the companies showed off Unreal Engine 3 applications running natively using JavaScript.
You can even try out a game prototype called bananabread running natively in your browser today – just watch out if you’re not running FireFox or if you have an older machine, because it may start to chug.
With today’s update, those capabilities and more are officially inside Firefox and the doors are open for developers to have their way with it.