Unlocking WebRTC for End User Driven Innovation

TL;DR

This paper introduces RTC Helper, a browser extension that intercepts and customizes WebRTC APIs in real-time, enabling end users and developers to innovate and prototype new web multimedia communication features easily.

Contribution

The paper presents RTC Helper, a novel browser extension architecture that allows real-time interception and customization of WebRTC APIs for end user-driven innovation.

Findings

Supports over ten customization categories

Includes more than a hundred built-in examples

Enables rapid prototyping without rebuilding web apps

Abstract

We present a software architecture to enable end user driven innovation of web multimedia communication applications. RTC Helper is a simple and easy-to-use software that can intercept WebRTC (web real-time communication) and related APIs in the browser, and change the behavior of web apps in real-time. Such customization can even be driven by the end user on third-party web apps using our flexible and general purpose browser extension. It also facilitates rapid prototyping of ideas by web developers in their existing web apps without having to rebuild or redeploy after every change. It has more than ten customization categories, and over a hundred built-in examples covering a wide range of novel use cases in web-based audio/video communication.