This document summarizes Dan Jenkins' frustrations with developing WebRTC applications in browsers. It outlines inconsistencies across browsers in APIs like getUserMedia and screen sharing. It also discusses challenges with mobile WebRTC, lack of support for features like background blur, and lack of documentation around advanced encoding options. However, it acknowledges that WebRTC remains a powerful tool for real-time communication due to its support on many devices and ability to traverse NATs with sub-second latency. It encourages developers to provide feedback to help improve the WebRTC experience.

1. Dan Jenkins
@dan_jenkins
Yup...
WebRTC still
sucks.

2. Dan Jenkins
WebRTC & Real
Time Media Geek
@dan_jenkins
Founder -
broadcaster.vc
Photo Credits of Indiana Jones stills to Paramount Pictures/Lucas Film

5. st

13. (Don't say I didn't warn you)

15. Indiana Jones has
no effect on the
ending of Raiders
of the Lost Ark
(Everyone knows this... don't they?)

16. "If he weren't in the
movie the Nazis
would still find the
Ark, still have taken it
to the island, opened
it up, and died"Amy Farrah Fowler

32. Why do we have to
do a getUserMedia
call to ask
permission to
enumerate devices?

33. Do I hate working
with the WebRTC
Stats API?

34. Are some of the
APIs defined by the
W3C completely
and utterly
frustrating?

36. But I'm not here to
talk about those
either.

39. Who here has
developed with
the WebRTC
browser APIs?

43. (But acts like a 3 year old)

45. Inconsistent
user experiences
getUserMedia behaves differently in Firefox, Chrome and
Safari
&
getUserMedia trust is different in Firefox, Chrome and
Safari

46. Screen sharing is
totally inconsistent
across all
browsers

47. Working against the
browser's
permissions models
on mobile to get a
usable experience

48. WebRTC on
mobile should be
amazing. Its truly
terrible though*
*(For developers)

49. iOS Webview
doesn't support
background
audio
(This means any browser other than Safari on iOS)

50. API's that just
don't appear to
work properly at all
applyConstraints on an existing audio track just doesn't work in Chrome
It works perfectly in Safari

51. SVC is the future
VP9 is now supported in Chrome, Firefox and Safari
But how do you enable VP9 SVC?
Origin trial? Flags when starting the browser?
In Chrome... flags yes... but also munging SDP with secret
sauce you only know once you make a sacrifice

53. How can a browser only
have one developer*
working on WebRTC?
(I'm looking at you apple)
*It looks like there's only one developer working on WebRTC at
Apple... I don't know for certain

54. Background Blur reached "rough consensus" in May
Nothing's happened so far?
Yet huge progress on other APIs that browser vendors want
(This one's a bit unfair... but I included it anyway)

55. Yup... got to SDP munge for that.
Along with many many other features - you shouldn't have to read
libWebRTC source code to find out what's possible

57. (It's not just WebRTC... as we've heard from other presentations)

59. Developing
Browser WebRTC
applications can
be extremely
frustrating

60. I wish the
WebRTC browser
experience was
better

64. (And so is Indiana Jones)

66. Almost all
devices in your
pockets support
WebRTC out of
the box
(Something Webcodecs and Webtransport won't have for years)

67. Sub Second E2EE
Data Transfer
between clients
behind NAT

68. (Yes I'm looking at you Zoom)

70. Independent*
WebRTC
implementations
Pion
WebRTC.rs
GStreamer
pi.pe
*(They don't rely on libWebRTC)

71. Janus
Mediasoup
FreeSWITCH
Livekit (built with Pion)
Jitsi
Medooze
Sora
*Plus others I've missed

72. Standardised* playback
and publishing
signalling standards
WHEP and WHIP
*soon

73. And most
importantly... you
don't need an extra
app download... just
a url in a browser

75. But it is still one
of the very best
tools in the box
for real time media
(Real time means being able to hold a conversation... ie. sub-second)

77. Default Security
NAT busting
Open Source
License Free
Works on any device with just a url
Pion

79. "A loose grouping of WebRTC developers who give
input/feedback to the W3C WebRTC working group."

80. The only way to
make things
better is to have
developer voices
heard

82. Choose
Wisely
Be more like
Indiana Jones
(I'm well aware this isn't Raiders of the Lost Ark)

83. Choose
WebRTC

85. Dan Jenkins
@dan_jenkins
broadcaster.vc
Photo Credits of Indiana Jones stills to Paramount Pictures/Lucas Film