{{define "index"}} About BareRTC

About BareRTC

This chat room software is called BareRTC and this page contains information about the software and how to use it.

BareRTC is an open source project released under the GNU General Public License with code available here.

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{{AsHTML .Config.Title}} is the name of this particular BareRTC server. The administrator may have left some links to more info below:


Help & Support

Tour of the user interface

Screenshot of the user interface on desktop
Pictured: Screenshot of the user interface on tablet or desktop-sized screens.

Screenshot of the user interface on mobile
Pictured: Screenshot of the mobile interface

Above are screenshots of how the chat room looks on desktop and mobile displays, respectively. For a description of some of the features pointed out above:

On mobile web browsers that don't have large enough screens to show everything at once, the Chat Room screen is shown by default and buttons appear in the corners to get to the two side panels (to change channels or manage your DMs, and to see Who Is Online and tune in to their webcams, respectively).

Feature Highlights

Emoji Reactions

You may add emoji reactions to chat messages by clicking on the button at the bottom right corner.

Reactions added by yourself or others will appear at the bottom of their message. You can see who reacted by hovering your mouse cursor over the button, or you can 'upvote' their reaction by clicking on it.

Muting spammy users

If somebody on chat is bothering you, you may mute their messages by clicking on the red button on their message.

While they are muted:

The mute is temporary and will last for the remainder of your chat session (until you log off).

Styling Your Messages

BareRTC supports Markdown syntax for your chat messages. You can make text bold by putting asterisks around part of it, **like this** or make text italic with *single asterisks*.

Hyperlinks you paste that begin with https:// will be clickable as-is, or you can create a custom label for it by typing e.g. [click my link](https://www.wikipedia.org/).

To learn more about Markdown, please check out the Markdown Guide website.

Video Sharing How-To's

About webcam sharing

The WebRTC technology used by this chat room allows for direct, peer to peer connections between you and the other chat members to stream video and audio directly to one another, without needing a server in the middle to relay all that data. In many cases, WebRTC should "just work" but you may run into trouble broadcasting if your local network is heavily firewalled (for example on a corporate or school network).

In many WebRTC video apps (such as Zoom, Jitsi, Google Hangouts, etc.), when one or both parties are on such difficult networks, a server in the middle is used to transfer the video data between them. BareRTC does not have any such server, as the bandwidth costs to carry your video could get expensive! If your video sharing is not working, it's unfortunate but you should still be able to have text chat conversations as normal.

Notice: because of the peer-to-peer nature of the webcam feature, it is possible that your chat partner may discover your IP address if they check their local computer's connections. This is true of all WebRTC-based video chat systems. Also, it is possible that your chat partner may "screen record" your video -- also true of all video sharing systems. Please inform a moderator if you know somebody is violating your privacy in this way so that they may be banned from the chat room.

How do I go on video?

To share your webcam, click on the green button at the top left of the web page. This will open a modal with some options for your camera:

How do I stop my camera?

When you are broadcasting, the red " Stop" button at the top of the page will turn your camera off.

How do I mute my camera's microphone?

The button to Mute will be at the top of the page next to the Stop button. Alternatively, you can click on the microphone inside your own webcam video preview to toggle the mute that way. Either button works!

How do I see who is watching me?

You may click on the button at the top of the page to see who is watching you. The number inside the button will be your current number of viewers.

You may also click on the Watching tab in the Who's Online list.

How do I stop somebody from watching me?

On the Who's Online list, click on the Watching tab to see who is currently watching your camera.

To 'boot' somebody off your camera, click on the button next to their name. This will kick them off your camera and they will not be allowed to re-open your cam for the remainder of your chat session.

To people who have been booted from your camera, the chat server will tell them that your camera isn't even broadcasting at all! They will see a greyed-out video button and may think you have simply turned off your camera, and they won't know for sure that you have booted them!

Supported Browsers

Currently, BareRTC works best on Chromium browsers (including Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Opera, Brave, and other Chromium derivatives) as well as Mozilla Firefox.

It works in these browsers on desktop operating systems (including Windows, Mac OS and GNU/Linux) as well as on Android devices.

Feature support matrix of browsers currently tested:

Device Type Web Browsers Chat works? Video works?
All Desktops Mozilla Firefox
All Desktops Chromium (Chrome, Edge)
Mac OS Desktop Safari
Android Mozilla Firefox
Android Chromium (Vanadium)
iPhone & iPad All browsers
Apple Safari Browsers

This section applies to web browsers based on Safari, which includes every web browser on iPad and iPhone. There are some more nuances to the support level of these browsers on BareRTC.

The regular chat features (logging in, chatting, sharing pictures) are 100% supported on Safari, but webcam sharing may be more difficult to get working. On iPad, iPhone, and Safari browsers, connecting to somebody's webcam may only work correctly if you follow exactly these steps:

  1. First, you need to share your own local webcam first (by clicking on the green "Share webcam" button at the top of the chat page).
  2. Then, you may only be able to view somebody else's camera IF they have marked the setting "When somebody opens my camera, I also open their camera automatically."

This is because Apple Safari only supports two-directional video calls, which is in contrast to the way that BareRTC was designed to work: it is intended to be possible that somebody can start their webcam and be watched by anybody who wants to tune in, without it always needing to be a two-way video call. But for Apple Safari browsers, uni-directional video channels are not supported, so iPads and iPhones are only able to successfully connect to a video if that person opts-in to open your video in return (thus making it a two-way video call).

For macOS users, it is recommended to use a Chromium or Firefox browser instead of Safari for the best experience. It is only Safari-based browsers that have this limitation. Unfortunately, there is no alternative for iPad or iPhone: every web browser on iOS is based on Safari per Apple's app store guidelines. (Chrome and Firefox on iOS were not allowed to bring their actual web browser engine to Apple's mobiles).

Privacy

Some of the privacy considerations with this chat room include:

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