Firefox was recently overtaken by Google Chrome for the top spot among Web browsers. Google's bet is supported by massive ad-campaign. But Mozilla wants to regain the position back by bringing software innovation to its Firefox Web browser.

Mozilla, intending to change the browsing experience, has demoed WebRTC standard-based video chat app for Firefox. The company wants to utilize HTML5. WebRTC (acronym for Web Real Time Communication) supports audio and video streaming for communication purposes by pushing away additional plugins like Abode Flash out of the way.

Mozilla has published the demo of WebRTC standard-based video chat app. In the demo, Mozilla uses experimental build of Firefox. WebRTC standard-based video chat has been built from scratch.

According to Anant Narayanan at Mozilla Labs, the company wants to roll this feature in mainline and will make it available in nightly builds in upcoming few months.

On Firefox, a web session is established between two users through WebRTC. The video call is entirely base on HTML and JavaScript. Users must be logged in by Persona (formerly known as BrowserID).

Installing SocialAPI add-on on Firefox facilitates WebRTC standard-based video chat. A sidebar appears in the browser window that shows currently signed-in users available for chat. Clicking on call button sends a request to another party. Once the call is accepted at the other end, a chat window appears on the screen.

Originally WebRTC was the brainchild of Global IP Solutions, which was acquired by Google in 2010. The search giant intending to standardize WebRTC released its source code under BSD license. WebRTC standard protocol is undergoing regular revisions and heavy development is in-progress. Some of its features are already being used in major Web browsers. Google, being the middle-man, is already utilizing WebRTC standard and it had recently rolled out camera access API on Chrome developer channel.

Meanwhile, folks at Firefox are also developing WebRTC standard support in a Mozilla branch called Alder.

(reported by Johnny Wills, edited by Surojit Chatterjee)