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Update 2019: No IE actually supports WebRTC and no IE ever will. In 5 weeks Microsoft Edge will die and long live Chromium based Edge.

That supports WebRTC.


Chrome and Firefox both support WebRTC.

Does Internet Explorer support it? Starting at which version?

If it does not, are there any plans to support it in the future, and if so when?

What about shimming support using projects like webrtc4all, is that a practical solution?

UPDATE: I am now after working with WebRTC for a year. WebRTC doesn't and won't work on IE (third party solutions that enable it barely work if at all and shouldn't be relied on). It is better to wait for Edge to rewrite to Chromium at which point WebRTC will be supported.

Benjamin Gruenbaum
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  • [Their website](http://www.webrtc.org) doesn't appear to make any mention of it, so probably not. –  Mar 31 '13 at 00:46
  • Please contact Microsoft Technical Support first. It should be no problem for you to get a definitive answer which should enable you to answer your own question here. Looking forward to read what you could find out. And as this is Microsoft, do not forget to nail them on the exact technical specification they have followed (or say they have followed). – hakre Mar 31 '13 at 10:12
  • [info box](http://i.imgur.com/tmhNlhW.png) from (upcoming) [w3viewer.com](http://w3viewer.com). – Šime Vidas Mar 31 '13 at 12:02
  • This isn't a programming question. – Rudie Feb 08 '14 at 21:29
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    @Rudie yes, it is - it's about the state of support of a technology. It's about the APIs and techniques available to use. Just like this http://stackoverflow.com/q/7232878/ or http://stackoverflow.com/q/3856294/ or this http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11596031/ or http://stackoverflow.com/q/47198/1348195 . Really, the site is full of questions that are similar to this one. Moreover, a mod audited it, (as well as a bunch of those other questions). Over 5000 people have read it and found it useful and it's small and objective. Please consider looking at http://stackoverflow.com/help/on-topic – Benjamin Gruenbaum Feb 08 '14 at 21:38
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    If talking about the media part, a reference I use is : http://caniuse.com/stream – nha Jul 24 '14 at 22:48
  • We've built a shim solution that uses ActiveX on IE @ Frozen Mountain (I work there), and it's deployed on a bunch of sites - works pretty well (http://www.frozenmountain.com/products/icelink/platforms) – Jerod Venema Aug 03 '14 at 15:53

4 Answers4

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For now IE doesn't support WebRTC. Moreover, it seems like MS don't plan to implement WebRTC. They announced a new technology called CU-RTC-Web - kinda Microsoft analog of WebRTC.

CU-RTC-WEB: http://html5labs.interoperabilitybridges.com/cu-rtc-web/cu-rtc-web.htm

Expected that this CU-RTC-WEB will be compatible with todays WebRTC.

UPDATED

Some people also report that IE supports WebRTC when using http://www.google.com/chromeframe

UPDATED

Microsoft announced supporting WebRTC in IE: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2014/10/27/bringing-interoperable-real-time-communications-to-the-web.aspx

UPDATED

While Microsoft will be adding WebRTC in IE, probably in 2015, to which version of IE is left to be seen: https://bloggeek.me/microsoft-browser-webrtc/

Tsahi Levent-Levi
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fycth
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    This is kind of a WTF moment, why would they develop a competing standard? Thanks for the answer :) – Benjamin Gruenbaum Apr 30 '13 at 20:36
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    Seriously? After finally trying to adhere to standards and playing nice they just go back to "screw you, we do what we want?" I hope IE will vanish very, very, very soon. – MarioP May 07 '13 at 22:07
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    "Later in the conference, Derek Burney, corporate vice president for Microsoft Lync and Microsoft Office Data, struck a more conciliatory tone, saying that Microsoft would incorporate WebRTC into IE when a standard had been finalized." -- Source: http://www.fierceenterprisecommunications.com/story/will-webrtc-be-delayed-microsoft/2013-03-21 – MarioP May 07 '13 at 22:11
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    This rumor-cum-information is lame at this point. "This document is **neither complete nor stable**". Source: [W3 WebRTC](http://www.w3.org/TR/webrtc/). IE and Opera teams never stated that WebRTC isn't on their roadmap. As for the experimental implementation, yeah they haven't revealed anything to public yet. – vulcan raven Sep 16 '13 at 11:26
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    Microsoft's standard was codec agnostic where Google's webRTC standard specifies VP8 as the video codec which could be considered a problem by some. http://gigaom.com/2013/01/17/microsoft-cu-webrtc-prototype/ – BigTundra Nov 21 '13 at 16:03
  • IceLink (which I've helped develop) has a JS API for WebRTC that uses native implementations in FF and Chrome, and falls back to ActiveX in IE. (http://www.frozenmountain.com/products/icelink/platforms) – Jerod Venema Aug 03 '14 at 15:51
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As of Sept 18 2015 Microsoft Edge (Spartan) is now supporting ORTC. Links and such are below.

BLOGS - http://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2015/09/18/ortc-api-is-now-available-in-microsoft-edge/

DEMOS on Edge Test Drive - http://dev.modern.ie/testdrive/demos/ortcdemo/ for Edge-to-Edge video calls

Open Source projects for WebRTC-ORTC interop – from partners working closely with us

Hope this helps. Healy in Tampa

Joe Healy
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3

For now IE doesn't support WebRTC.

Microsoft has some plans to implement WebRTC in the future, once ORTC APIs are added on top of WebRTC (also known as WebRTC 2.0).

The Chrome Frame plugin for IE has been discontinued, so that's not a good solution either.

The best option out there for now, is adopting Temasys' plugin for IE and Safari. It is free for use anywhere and adheres to the native WebRTC APIs. More information about it here: http://bloggeek.me/temasys-free-webrtc-plugin/

Tsahi Levent-Levi
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1

They say, ORTC API is available under Windows10 in the Microsoft Edge browser.

However, I did not see working example of ORTC(aka WebRTC2.0).

And I'm sure it is incompatible with current working WebRTC implemented in Chrome and FF.

ankitr
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