Last week, Mozilla began rolling out Firefox Hello
to all users of the latest version of its browser. The new service,
which has been in beta since mid-October, is based on WebRTC (Real-Time
Communications) and allows audio and video streaming without the need of
a third-party plugin. While the caller needs to use Firefox to start
the conversation, the other person only needs a browser that
incorporates WebRTC. Currently the Firefox, Chrome, and Opera browsers
support WebRTC with Microsoft is working on adding support for Internet
Explorer.Start a Conversation
To start a conversation, click the Firefox Hello icon
in your toolbar. If the icon is not in your toolbar, as in my case, you can add it there. Click the menu icon 
in the upper right corner of the browser window and choose ‘Customize’.
In the ‘Additional Tools and Features’ window, drag the Hello icon to
either your toolbar or the menu. If you don’t see the Hello icon and you
have updated to the latest version of Firefox, you may have to check
back in a few days. Mozilla is gradually rolling this feature out to
make sure they can handle the extra traffic. Once you click the icon, click the ‘Start a conversation’ button and a chat window will open. To invite someone to chat, either click the ‘email link’ button to create an email with the chat link or click the ‘Copy link’ button and send the link the other person by other means (text message, Twitter, etc.). Once the other person clicks the link or pastes the URL in their browser, their chat window opens and boom, you’re talking. You can find step-by-step instructions on the Mozilla Support site.
Pros & Cons
On the plus side, the video and audio quality was pretty good. As mentioned above, there is no plugin to download and install. There is no account to create and sign into unless you want Hello to maintain a contact list. If you have a Firefox account for Sync, the same account is used for Hello. You can either add contacts manually or import them from your Google contact list. Also according to the Firefox Hello privacy policy, once connected your communications are encrypted.On the negative side, Hello is pretty bare-bones right now; you can turn your camera on or off, mute your microphone, hang up and that’s it. You can only contact one person (no group chat) and no screen sharing capability. I’m hopeful that Mozilla will add these capabilities and more features over time.
If you use Firefox, give Hello a try and tell us what you think. Do you think this could eventually replace Skype and Google hangouts? Leave us your thoughts in the comments below, on the Geek Beat forums, or on your favorite social media site.
