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Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Connect with FirefoxHello

“Use your web browser to
chat with friends and family
any time, on any device”

 Connect with FirefoxHello
Video chat programs are
popular, but often come
with drawbacks that make it
tricky to contact your nearest and
dearest. Skype is perhaps the best
program around, and is built into
Windows 8 and 10, but users with
older browsers will have to download
it separately – not ideal if you need to
speak to someone urgently.
Firefox Hello is an innovative tool
that lets you speak to anyone with a
WebRTC-supported browser, such as
Firefox, Google Chrome or Opera –
no additional software or add-ons
needed. It’s versatile, and works with
any web-connected device, including
PCs, tablets and smartphones.
Firefox Hello is still new, and
doesn’t have as many features as
more established video chat tools,
but it’s being refined and improved
every day. Let’s get started!

Step-by-step Chat happy with Firefox Hello
                                                      Get the latest Firefox
You can use any browser to join an existing Firefox Hello
conversation, but you’ll need to use Firefox to set one up. If you
don’t have Firefox, download it from www.mozilla.org, run the
installation process, and decide whether you want to make it your
default browser. If you have Firefox, click the Menu icon, then
‘Advanced > Update’ and enable automatic updates.

Sign up or sign in
Sign up or sign in
Click the speech bubble icon at the top right of your
browser and select ‘Get started’. Click ‘Sign up or sign in’. You can
use Hello as a guest, but we use it regularly, so we’re going to sign
in using our Google account. Firefox will tell you which aspects of
your account it will need access to; if you’re happy, accept the
terms and you’re ready to begin.

Start your first call
Start your first call
You’ll now see a welcome message. Click ‘Start a
conversation’ and a box will appear in the bottom right of the
screen. It’s small so you can continue using your browser while
chatting, but you can make it larger by clicking the arrow icon in
its top-right corner. This call will have an address that you can
share with anyone you’d like to invite to the conversation.

Send an invitation
Send an invitation
You don’t want to send your friend an invitation out of the
blue, so click the pencil icon beside ‘Let’s talk about’, then write a
title and a little context. Now click ‘Email link’ to open Outlook.
Firefox will create a new draft email inviting your friend to join the
conversation – all you have to do is enter their email address. You
can also copy the link and paste it on Facebook or Twitter.

Start chatting
Start chatting
Once your friend clicks the link, you’ll hear a notification
letting you know that they’ve joined the call. You should be able
to hear them, and if they’ve given Firefox Hello permission to
access their webcam or phone camera, you’ll be able to see them
too. If you need to mute your voice at any time, just click the
microphone button at the top right of the chat window.

Share screens
Share screens
You can also share your screen with your friend – either your
Firefox tabs or everything. This is great if you need to help your
friend with a technical problem on their PC; they can simply show
you exactly what their screen looks like, and you can guide them
through the steps to correct it. A green bar will appear at the top
of your screen; click ‘Stop sharing’ here once you’ve finished.

Feedback and support
Feedback and support
Once you’ve finished, click the red button to hang up and
you’ll be prompted to rate the quality of your call. There are
known issues with the current version of Firefox Hello, which the
developers are working to fix. If you have trouble getting your
audio or video to work correctly, follow the suggestions at http://
mzl.la/1UNr3NK, which provide a couple of different solutions.

Set up contacts
Set up contacts
To make it easier to stay in touch, it’s a good idea to set up a
list of contacts. You can call these people directly, without
sending an invitation email or link. You can add people manually,
or give Firefox permission to use your Google account. Click the
Firefox Hello button in your browser, then click the person icon at
the top of the box that appears and choose your preferred option.

Make it yours
Make it yours
To change your account settings at any time, click the
Firefox Hello icon in your browser, then click the gear icon next
to your username and select ‘Account’. Here you can choose a
profile photo and enter your name – both are very useful to let
others know who you are when you’re contacting them
through Firefox.

Keep in touch
Keep in touch
Congratulations, you now know how to make calls directly
from your browser while you’re surfing the web, without
downloading any add-ons or extra programs! Firefox Hello is still
very new, and its developers are adding new features and fixing
bugs all the time. Make sure you have automatic updates enabled
(see step 1) to make sure you never miss out.

jargon buster

Stay connected with Firefox Hello

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