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Comment by Brakenshire | Hacker News Reader

Never really understood why people were strongly opposed to Firefox Hello. As far as I understand, it's a minimal wrapper on WebRTC. Seems to be no argument on bloat, perhaps a minimal argument on confusing the user? Or was there some privacy implication I hadn't heard of?

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Well for one, Firefox Hello works with a centralized signaling server running proprietary code. Not appealing to the contingent of Firefox users who use it because it's the most in-line with free software ideals of the popular browsers.

running proprietary code

No, the server is MPLv2 licensed: https://github.com/mozilla-services/loop-server

As I understand, It uses Telefonica's proprietary (and misleadingly named) OpenTok platform. The README you linked even mentions specifying TokBox credentials.

You are correct, Hello used OpenTok. To enable Hello with NoScript active one had to whitelist opentok.com and tokbox.com

Loop Server was indeed open source but sat downstream from the WebRTC and STUN / TURN provider

https://wiki.mozilla.org/File:Loop-network.png

Interesting to see OpenTok's pricing, though presumably Mozilla had an 'arrangement' with Telefonica:

https://tokbox.com/pricing

It is just not useful for anything. You can't tell your friends to install Firefox for a video call.

You don't need Firefox for a video chat. It sends a link and you can open it in any browser.

Why can't we in 2016? What is so special about "installing" software as opposed to just running it, that it needs additional consideration?

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