Browser Network

Browser Network is a small WebRTC peer mesh. It uses an HTTP Switchboard only for initial peer discovery; connected peers gossip application messages.

Installation

npm install @browser-network/network @browser-network/crypto

Script-tag builds expose window.Network and window.Bnc:

<script src="https://unpkg.com/@browser-network/crypto/umd/crypto.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/@browser-network/network/umd/network.min.js"></script>

Usage

import Network from '@browser-network/network'
import { generateSecret } from '@browser-network/crypto'

const network = new Network({
  switchAddress: 'https://browser-network-switchboard.herokuapp.com/',
  networkId: 'unique-application-network-id',
  secret: generateSecret()
})

network.on('message', message => console.log(message))
network.broadcast({ type: 'hello', appId: 'my-app', data: { text: 'hello' } })

With UMD bundles use the constructors directly:

const network = new Network({ switchAddress, networkId, secret: Bnc.generateSecret() })

Supplying secret enables signed messages and encrypted negotiation SDP. Its derived public key is the peer address. Supplying an arbitrary address instead creates an insecure network and is appropriate only for trusted/testing uses.

Call network.teardown() before unloading an application or disposing a peer.

Connectivity and delivery

Browser Network is intentionally STUN-only. It does not operate or configure TURN relays. Direct WebRTC connectivity can fail behind restrictive NATs, firewalls, corporate networks, mobile networks, or when UDP/WebRTC is blocked. Applications must tolerate unavailable peers and partitions.

Gossip is best-effort across peers connected when a message is broadcast. A live WebRTC data channel is reliable and ordered per connection, but Browser Network does not guarantee end-to-end delivery, global ordering, exactly-once processing, persistence, or delivery during a partition. Duplicate relays are deduplicated for one minute. Applications requiring receipts, durable offline delivery, or strict ordering must implement them.

Switchboard

The Switchboard stores short-lived in-memory negotiation records. Negotiation submissions are idempotent within a network; recipients acknowledge records after processing. A Switchboard restart loses pending negotiations, so peers must keep polling/retrying and tolerate a new connection attempt.

Use the deployed service above or run your own:

cd switchboard && npm install && npm start

A networkId partitions discovery only; it is not authentication or authorization.