Firefox 22 Launched with 3D Gaming and Video Calls

Mozilla Released Firefox 22 with 3D Gaming and Video Calls

July. 09, 2013 9:35 pm / Posted by Michael Eric to News
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Mozilla this week launched the latest version of its Firefox browser, which is quite a big surprise to users as it includes new features like 3D gaming and video calls.

The newest version, Firefox 22, successfully makes itself the first stable version that supports the WebRTC protocol and includes support for the organization's asm.js JavaScript subset that offers near-native performance for web apps.

Video and Audio Calls Supported by WebRTC

With Web Real-Time Communications (WebRTC), which allows the integration of these features into Web apps "with just a few lines of code", developers could create web apps with built-in video and audio calls, as well as file sharing without the need for any plugins or third-party software.

"This technology makes it possible to place and receive video calls from a mobile or desktop browser or share live video, files and images with friends and family," Mozilla said.

According to sources, third-party services like Tokbox are already supporting WebRTC. It is likely that a large number of startups and established companies would examine this technology far closer. Microsoft, so far, remains the only major vendor who has decided to go ahead with a different standard for the same functionality. We're still not sure if Internet Explorer would support WebRTC in the near future.

3D Gaming with Asm.js

Asm.js is another technology that has the potential to be a game changer. Asm.js is a subset of JavaScript that runs with near-native speed in the browser. It is, as Mozilla's CTO Brendan Eich explained, a sub-language that "effectively describes a safe virtual machine for memory-unsafe languages like C or C++." Thanks to tools like Emscripten, which can compile C and C++ code, asm.js developers can also use it to convert their C and C++ programs to run in the browser. Asm.js currently gets to within 2x of native performance, and the team is working hard to speed it up even more.

Want to get a fresh copy of Firefox 22? Head to Firefox download page. Or you could just choose Help > About Firefox from the browser's main menu and then restart the program. For more tips on Firefox, see Tips for Online Website.

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