
Show HN: Group video chat with no signups or downloads - vasanthv
https://itshello.co
======
tendencydriven
This is a great project, and really quite useful. Any way to support desktop
sharing, or is that out of scope (as you'd most likely require a plugin, like
Appear.in and such).

Thank you for releasing the source code as well, I've been wanting to learn
more about WebRTC and it looks remarkably simple to get started with!

~~~
vasanthv
Yes currently desktop sharing is only available in Chrome. I am planning to
enable it only for the supported browsers soon, as I don't want anyone to
download a plugin for this purpose.

~~~
villgax
It works fine with Firefox without extensions, you can take a look at
MuazKhan's demo for inspiration.

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jsiepkes
Looks cool! Though I don't really see any distinctive features which sets it
apart from Jitsi meet ( [https://meet.jit.si](https://meet.jit.si) ) which is
also open source?

~~~
vasanthv
Jitsi Meet does not work in mobile without downloading their app, but this one
does. Just open the URL and it just works from the browser.

~~~
itake
Jitsi Meet also provides support for screen sharing.

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SamWhited
Doesn't work at all for me. On Firefox I allow camera and mic and just get a
black screen, on Chromium it doesn't even ask for camera and mic permissions,
but even if I manually enable them it gives me a popup saying that it requires
access to them (that same popup never showed up on firefox before I had
enabled them, but I didn't outright reject it either, so maybe it just doesn't
show until it thinks it asked and I didn't notice it).

Nothing on the console, but I know nothing about front end web development so
I'm afraid I probably can't provide a useful bug report.

~~~
hamslamwich
Similar user experience comment from me: for whatever settings i have on
Chrome, all i get when entering is a black screen and a popup that says "This
site will not work without microphone/camera access". Not a deal-breaker, but
definitely could be a friendlier/welcoming experience

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jeremija
I've also made a similar app a while ago:
[https://peercalls.com](https://peercalls.com) Source is available at:
[https://github.com/jeremija/peer-calls](https://github.com/jeremija/peer-
calls)

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wingerlang
I am video chatting a lot, and for some reason desktop-to-desktop in FB
Messenger always struggle (mobile is fine usually). This worked instantly,
nice.

Although I did notice my internet got cut off twice, usually this happens when
I download torrents. Could the P2P of this be the reason for this?

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omk
Would be a good idea to remove the google tracker in the github source code.
I've created an issue.
[https://github.com/vasanthv/hello/issues/16](https://github.com/vasanthv/hello/issues/16)

~~~
vasanthv
Sure will do. Thanks for pointing out.

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
Thanks for removing it from GitHub. Would you also consider removing it from
the deployed site, please?

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sabbakeynejad
Really nice! Might be a good idea to think a little bit about how to
communicate your brand.

Many users will have no idea if they ever used your product or not. You should
use the network effect of group calls to advertise your product. Maybe just
stick your logo in the top right corner?

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vidanay
Does it traverse corporate firewalls? I use appear.in a lot, but all users
must be either inside the firewall (VPN works) or outside the firewall, there
cannot be a mix.

~~~
hardwaresofton
BTW appear.in went login-only sometime recently (I think? I used it yesterday
and was surprised), no more free anonymous rooms :(

jitsi meet still has free anon rooms though

~~~
j1elo
appear.in went login-only very recently, and they only allow for a single room
name, which is a pain in the * (although it's free so I can't complain...)

I'm using talky.io more since the change. Works pretty well, and they allow to
start the call with audio only, which is something appear doesn't do.

~~~
hardwaresofton
Ahhh -- yeah, I didn't blame them too much, since of course they need to
monetize _somehow_ or maybe even were being crushed under the server load
(giving bad service even for free might piss off people or invite bad press).

In the end a bunch of these companies are really just using WebRTC under the
covers + some improvements/management on their side, so they should be
avoiding most of the load (especially since most of them say they can't
support >4 people in a room or whatever since that's the traditional
limitation of truly p2p webrtc implementations).

thanks for the pointer to talky.io, I also took note of some of the other
suggestions in this thread, will be using them as well.

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melicerte
What is the license of the open source code ?

~~~
vasanthv
WTFPL

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ada1981
The link wasn’t copiable for me without grabbing it from the address bar.

Is it possible to record and capture the video?

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asymmetric
Looks great! Are the p2p video streams end-to-end encrypted?

~~~
pedalpete
webrtc has end-to-end encryption by default built into the browser

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Angostura
Reminds me of the early days of Tinychat.

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yakshaving_jgt
How will you charge for this? Because if it's free, it won't stick around for
long.

~~~
vasanthv
Running is cost is negligible. \- Paying for the domain (19$/yr). \- Using
Zeit now's free plan for hosting. \- Very low load on the server as it is P2P.
\- No database.

Guess I can run it for free. :)

~~~
mrgreenfur
Thanks for making it public and open! Might use parts of it in an upcoming
project.

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mcjiggerlog
I made a similar app recently - [https://p2p.chat](https://p2p.chat)

Code is available here - [https://github.com/tom-james-
watson/p2p.chat/](https://github.com/tom-james-watson/p2p.chat/)

(Warning - definitely pretty alpha still)

