
Dear Slack: why is your WebRTC so weak? - eloycoto
https://webrtchacks.com/dear-slack/
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dwwoelfel
> you need to have a very good excuse to launch something with WebRTC and not
> support Firefox.

I built audio chat over webRTC for
[https://precursorapp.com](https://precursorapp.com) [1]. I built support for
both Firefox and Chrome, but I can understand why someone would choose not to
support Firefox.

There are lots of annoying little differences between the two implementations.
For example, Firefox wouldn't fire a negotiationneeded event after adding a
stream [2], so I had to add a special workaround for them. Connection stats
was another area where the APIs diverged a lot.

In their defense, sometimes Firefox does a better job of implementing the spec
than Chrome does. But since most people develop in Chrome first, it's no
surprise that they put off working on a Firefox implementation until they're
happy with their implementation in Chrome.

[1] Click on the mic icon at the bottom left of a document to try it out.

[2]
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1071643](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1071643)

~~~
randall
This is our experience too for Epishow. It's not that we couldn't get it
working, it's that we focus on one platform (chrome) then expand outward (web
at large, which for now means ff).

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cpeterso
Summary: why does Slack support WebRTC in Chrome but not Firefox?

~~~
Klathmon
Well it's been a little over a year or so since i last worked with WebRTC, but
portions of it have pretty bad cross browser compatability.

Firefox can talk with firefox fine, chrome with chrome, but the 2 have some
issues talking with each other.

Maybe Slack just made a decision to support chrome until the 2 meet in a way
that makes them compatible.

~~~
stymaar
I've been working on a webRTC application as a full-time job for 1 and a half
year now, and I've never faced cross-browser communication issues. The main
problem at the moment is Chrome's implementation of the datachannel, it's
terrible … (huge performance issues when having too many open connection,
complete browser crash when using unreliable transport (fixed now, but it took
almost one year), no support for Blob binary type …) As the article says,
doing Chrome-only webRTC in 2015 and 2016 is really a strange decision …

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owenwil
Because it's a beta and not finished yet? God.

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HerpDerpLerp
Is the backlash against Slash starting? (the Backslash!?)

seen a fair few negative posts of late.

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neximo4
Also why does your chat client take soo long (we're talking 20s+) to start up
if you're not in the US.

~~~
owenwil
I think your connection is bad? Europe here, starts in 1-2 seconds.

~~~
neximo4
Tried in 4 countries, Australia included. Granted its better and worse at
times it is consistently worse off than using fb (via web browser), Telegram
(Mac app) & Whatsapp (web app). They have a better architecture under the hood
it looks like.

If the devs tracked startup times, they would know what exactly i'm talking
about.

