Firefox VoIP Client 177
libocannici writes "Abbeynet Labs has released the first version of a Firefox VoIP extension which is a full featured SIP user agent plugin for Firefox." The Firefox extension is completely stand-alone, with all VoIP functionality built directly into it. From one-click calling to SMS sending, this promises to be quite handy. All Internet calls are currently free, just requiring an abbyphone account, while PSTN calls have a small charge.
AMD (Score:5, Funny)
Re:AMD (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:AMD (Score:3, Insightful)
No, but it sounds like a great idea for an extension!
Firefox card games (Score:4, Interesting)
http://cardgames.mozdev.org/ [mozdev.org]
- Kevin
Err, why? (Score:4, Interesting)
I use Opera, damnit!
Re:Err, why? (Score:5, Insightful)
-matthew
Re:Err, why? (Score:2)
Re:Err, why? (Score:2)
-matthew
Re:Err, why? (Score:2)
Actually, it would probably best be done as a greasemonkey script, at least for the issue of making phone numbers into links. I'm not sure how to best add a protocol handler.
Re:Err, why? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Err, why? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Err, why? (Score:5, Informative)
You still don't need to build the VOIP into the browser. Just a Greasemonkey script to convert plain-text telephone numbers into <a href="tel:..."> [ietf.org] links and a handler to pass off tel: links to an external program just like mailto: links are handled.
Re:Err, why? (Score:2, Funny)
Sure. Just build massive electric fans to blow the pollution away and invite the hungry people over for dinner.
There is already a skype extension for firefox (Score:5, Informative)
I maintain a salesforce database and this thing is brilliant. Just click the #.
Re:Err, why? (Score:3, Insightful)
There are a zillion stand alone SIP applications, which is beside the point.
From the company's perspective this is great for 3 reasons;
1) one-click install; no setup.exe, no
2) silly browser integration; it recognizes phonenumbers and makes them cli
Re:Err, why? (Score:2)
You laugh, but Opera for mobile phones already implements RFC 3966 [ietf.org], which means you can click on a link in a web page to call somebody.
Re:Err, why? (Score:2)
When Web 2.0 calms, and the dust has settled we will see what consequences have swept in with all this madness.
How about a simple extension that'll make it easy to transfer webpage bookmarks across IM network during conversation, without having to go edit your bookmark and copy and paste the url, that may actually be a useful integration for heavy VoIP users...no no lets just put the whole VoIP cli
compatibility (Score:3, Insightful)
whereas this extension use the SIP protocol (documented and open), and therefor is compatible with the gazillion of other SIP-compatible VoIP applications (e.g.: Ekiga [ekiga.org] - H323/SIP VoIP software).
Re:Err, why? (Score:2)
Re:Err, why? (Score:2)
-matthew
Re:Err, why? (Score:2)
Re:Err, why? (Score:2)
There's a large number of utilities that provide "minimize to system tray" functionality. Some of them even add a button to the title bar, to the left of the minimize button.
Re:Err, why? (Score:2)
Re:Wiretapping Skype (Score:2)
Ticked Off Ma Bell (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Ticked Off Ma Bell (Score:2)
-matthew
Re:Ticked Off Ma Bell (Score:3, Insightful)
*sigh* Fine, then... (Score:2)
*sigh* Fine then... You've convinced me. I'll give it a try.
Why use firefox then? (Score:2, Interesting)
All in One ... Not always Good? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll just run Skype in my tray, thanks..
Confrence-blogocall? (Score:2)
-Rick
Almost makes you feel sorry for IE users (Score:3, Funny)
With all this development for FF, it makes me shed a tear for IE users. If they only knew.
http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]Re:Almost makes you feel sorry for IE users (Score:2, Insightful)
I'll get the word out. Thanks.
Re:Almost makes you feel sorry for IE users (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Almost makes you feel sorry for IE users (Score:2)
Duh. This is
Re:Almost makes you feel sorry for IE users (Score:2)
Re:Almost makes you feel sorry for IE users (Score:5, Funny)
It's the state-of-the-art in software distribution. They install it on your computer before you even know you want it there. Microsoft has always been ahead of the curve here.
Re:Almost makes you feel sorry for IE users (Score:2, Funny)
There's a large community out there that makes "extensions" for IE as well, you've just never bothered to look.
Sadly, Microsoft's security patches keep breaking compatibility with these "extensions".
One word for you (Score:2)
Tool (Score:2)
Re:Almost makes you feel sorry for IE users (Score:2)
Crap stuffed into firefox is not crap anymore ? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a non-free windows VOIP application. There are zillions of similar things already on the market. Why is this one noticeable ? Because it was stuffed into firefox-the-free-software ?
MOD Parent UP: Insightful (Score:2)
This is a non-free windows VOIP application. There are zillions of similar things already on the market. Why is this one noticeable ? Because it was stuffed into firefox-the-free-software ?
Never were truer words spoken. Would mod this +1 Insightful but all out of points...
PS: how about some links to open VoIP clients ?
Re:Crap stuffed into firefox is not crap anymore ? (Score:2)
Re:Crap stuffed into firefox is not crap anymore ? (Score:3, Informative)
seems like the term "free" being abused here (Score:3, Informative)
Skimming the site, the software may be free/open/libre, but it looks like the infrastructure into which it taps is not free (Wengo charges money). Is this the case with all voip setups/clients (that they must necessarily tap into a non-free infrastructural provider)?
Re:seems like the term "free" being abused here (Score:2)
OpenWengo is a SIP phone. Since SIP is an open protocol, you can call any SIP phone in the world for free (for example, non-wengo clients like Gizmo and regular phone lines hooked with SIP adapters).
SIP-clients (Score:2)
no [xten.net]
no [ekiga.net]
and no [twinklephone.com]
Re:Crap stuffed into firefox is not crap anymore ? (Score:2)
SJPhone/Twinkle/Ekiga ftw.
Re:Crap stuffed into firefox is not crap anymore ? (Score:4, Informative)
I find this plugin as useful as the yahoo toolbar that get's shoved down my throat at almost every turn now days.
Remember when Firefox was a web browser? (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, can we say feature bloat?
The next firefox news I want to here is the news that firefox 1.5 isn't a memory leaking bloated piece of shit under linux. I'm not joking when I say that running IE under wine is faster and more stable on my machine. FF is leaking memory just sitting there doing nothing -- I can see it happen with top.
Re:Remember when Firefox was a web browser? (Score:2, Insightful)
Not really...this is an EXTENSION which means it is not built into the firefox code base. You have to put extra effort to actually download and install it. If you download and install then obviously you know what you are doing and the extension is worth something to you. Other could care less and can simply chose to ignore. I don't see how that is a feature bloat.
I'm not joking when I say that running IE under wine is faster and more stable on my machine. FF is leaki
s/EMACS/Firefox (Score:3, Insightful)
Firefox is my operating system; linux is its device drivers?
Future, meet the past. Past, the future.
Re:Remember when Firefox was a web browser? (Score:2)
Odd that a Linux user savvy enough to run top and spot memory leaks could be so completely ignorant of a concept as simple as Firefox extensions.
You're right about it being unstable though. But the memory usage is for a reason. It's wasting a lot of memory to track how much time you've spent typing a textarea. It then takes this data and uses even more memory working out the exact right moment to crash and lose all your work on you, for maximum psychological effect. Bastards.
Re:Remember when Firefox was a web browser? (Score:2)
Doesn't that depend on how much of your bead collection you use at once?
Re:Remember when Firefox was a web browser? (Score:2)
Re:Remember when Firefox was a web browser? (Score:2)
Extensions are great. (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, I don't think phone companies are going to care too much about this. They are more concerned with cellphone and how to continue to be profitable in the rapidly changing telecommunications marketplace.
Home telephone service is dying. (Please excuse the redundancy of that last statement. It just seemed like it needed to be said.)
Re:Extensions are great. (Score:5, Insightful)
Home telephone will die when:
1) Cellular coverage is complete and solid. There are still large chunks of rural areas with no service at all.
2) Cellular service becomes reliable. I run into "network busy" at least once a month; I've never had such a problem with my land line.
3) cellular service becomes truly affordable. I can get a land line with unlimited long distance for somewhere around $60-70. If I go with the most basic service, I can get it unlimited local for under $40. My cell phone plan with 600 "any time" minutes costs more than either. First cell company to unlimited minutes for $50 a month wins my cash vote.
4) DSL is available without telephone service. That's where the phone companies like AT&T are already going: they see a severe decline in landline subscriptions coming and are trying to dig into the cable market. "Fiber to the home" is becoming quite the popular phrase.
Re:Extensions are great. (Score:2)
They win [metropcs.com]. Coverage areas are limited, as they are a new launch and they are apparently building out their network. Even so, in the limited places where they offer service, this price point -- unlimited airtime for $45/mo -- has arrived.
Even more fun, there's no contract and no activation fee. While the phones aren't portable to other carriers (CDMA) and the selection of handsets is limited, that will chan
Re:Extensions are great. (Score:2)
Thanks, but no thanks. (Score:4, Interesting)
<EVERYTHING> extensions. (Score:4, Insightful)
The more I think about it, there certainly are enough extensions out there to just have Windows boot firefox.exe rather than explorer as a default shell. Forget the start menu! Everything you need is built into your web browser!! As for office apps, there's a good range of "Web 2.0" office suites that you could use.
I can't decide if this is a good or a bad thing.
Re: extensions. (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, Firefox is truly becoming the 21st century EMACS. It's a decent OS, all it needs now is a good web browser ;).
What really worries me is when the EMACS developers realise that they can replace their built-in web browser with Firefox and when the Firefox developers realise that they can replace their built-in text boxes with EMACS. The resulting bloat will collapse in on itself and the Earth will be sucked into the newly-formed black hole.
Re: extensions. (Score:2)
Re: extensions. (Score:3, Interesting)
Good:
Bad:
My Pentium III can still handle KDE + Firefox + Extensions, so I'm not complaining yet. And at 4 - 2, it's a net win for Good Thing.
Re: extensions. (Score:2)
I'll help you out: It's the latter.
Features are nice as long as the UI is clean and performance doesn't suffer. FireFox accomplishes neither at the moment. Opera, on the other hand, have in my opinion been walking a fine line, performance is still good enough, but occasionally I have my doubts about the interface (usually after having seen my step-mother using it, but she's capable of not understanding anything, including 'click there','click with the left
Asterisk IAX Client too (Score:5, Informative)
There's also an IAX client for Asterisk fans called MozIAX available here [mozdev.org].
But does it work in linux? (Score:5, Insightful)
Saying "firefox plugin" is not enough if you don't plan on supporting ALL versions of firefox. You need to specify "windows only" so we can lump it in with the rest of the windows VoIP crap.
aw, geeze ..... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not the 1st: Wengo beat them to the punch (Score:5, Informative)
Wengo btw is my operator of choice here in Europe with top-notch voice quality and reliability with prices lower than Skype. Only problem is their inbound number is France only atm. Did I mention that they have a working Gaim port? [wengo.com]
Re:Not the 1st: Wengo beat them to the punch (Score:2)
Re:Not the 1st: Wengo beat them to the punch (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not the 1st: Wengo beat them to the punch (Score:2)
Thanks for posting the corrected link to the page.
Wengo rocks for supporting such diverse platformes, hope you'll enjoy it as much as me.
Re:Not the 1st: Wengo beat them to the punch (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not the 1st: Wengo beat them to the punch (Score:2)
I'd rather use a client which let me use any provider such as sjphone, twinkle or ekiga thank you.
Re:Not the 1st: Wengo beat them to the punch (Score:2)
WIth the latter (available on openwengo.com) you get a SIP client that you can configure to work with any SIP provider. So what are you complaining about? THey offer you a pre-configured client for their service, if you just want the client use their open-source FOSS software.
What else do you want?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Can we get an office suite as well? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Can we get an office suite as well? (Score:2)
Re:Can we get an office suite as well? (Score:2)
Re:Can we get an office suite as well? (Score:2)
Why stop at being a web browser when you can be a hypervisor too?
VoIP in a browser? (Score:3, Insightful)
Things like xmms and mplayer are more 'browsing' than voip. Things like email clients, voip, financial applications, spreadsheets, idsoftware games are all non-browser software and should not be a part of the browser. A browser should include things that are required for browsers, and wont go anywhere else like shockwave flash players.
And I've seen other comments before, people dont like their firefoxen growing fatter.
Customer support. (Score:2)
And don't get sucked into Skype
Flock (Score:3, Insightful)
An alternate to this VOIP extension (Score:4, Interesting)
Why must everything be a firefox addin, and why... (Score:3, Interesting)
The New New New Thing (Score:5, Insightful)
And I hope this SIP client pushes Firefox into even further deployment.
Simple integration of voice into the Web has the power to be the "new Netscape", combining multiple related functions into a single integrated experience among hundreds of millions of people around the world.
Calling the PSTN for a charge might become like the mid-1990s paying small dialup prices to access the rest of the Net for "free".
Re:The New New New Thing (Score:2)
VoIP is probably going to force ISPs to honor their "unlimited" contracts, or revise them, in combination with other streaming apps.
Skype or OpenWengo or ...? (Score:2)
It must run at least on Linux and Windows, and running on OpenBSD would be a plus.
PSTN connection is not a must, but would be nice as well.
So, what is the best software for phone and/or video communication?
Isn't it now called VONSA? (Score:5, Funny)
Great start! Now where is a *working* java applet? (Score:2)
My parents are technophobes - replacing IE is possible but having them download an extension is a bit much.
Show me a working java VOIP applet I can put on my webpage (I don't care if I need to pay to sign it) and I'm definitely willing to shell out some cash.
Um? (Score:2)
In other news... (Score:2)
Bloat wars (Score:2)
Re:I use Stickam (Score:2)
Re:I use Stickam (Score:2)
Re:Standard protocol is needed!! (Score:3, Informative)
Any SIP VoIP application should interoperate just fine with any other SIP application. same goes for H.323.
Skype is special and uses a proprietary nonstandard protocol and as such wont interoperate with anything else.
It would be nice if skype were to be gradually phased out and replaced with proper H.323 or SIP based applications.
Re:Standard protocol is needed!! (Score:3, Informative)
Don't count out IAX2. Although mainly designed to talk to Asterisk servers A)anyone could conceivably use it anyway and B) there certainly seem to be a lot of Asterisk servers out there these days...
But, yeah, SIP (the current favorite) and H.323 (older protocol, used by MS's old "NetMeeting(tm)" product and a number of others) are the big ones.
Re:Standard protocol is needed!! (Score:2, Informative)