Enable Web Speech API on Mozilla Firefox

Question

I've been working with the voice/speech synthesis on Chrome and then I realized Firefox doesn't allow it by default and special permissions must be granted.

By reading this article I could make the test work:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Speech_API/Using_the_Web_Speech_API

Firefox desktop and mobile support it in Gecko 44+, without prefixes, and it can be turned on by flipping the media.webspeech.recognition.enable flag to true in about:config. The permissions settings/UI haven't yet been sorted out however, so permission can't be granted to use it by the user, so it can't be used. This will be fixed soon.

The test is in this link:

http://mdn.github.io/web-speech-api/speak-easy-synthesis/

But I wonder how I could allow it on my client's browser when they go to my app? How do we ask for different permissions and allow, for example, media.webspeech.synth.enabled?

Chelseychelsie

Did you ever figure this out? I am still trying to get speech recognition working in Firefox. (Preferably Windows but really an OS would be a breakthrough) – Wentworth

Answer 1

As an update, Speech Synthesis is enabled in Firefox 49+ (2016-09).

Work on exposing Speech Recognition to the web is ongoing as of 2019 (see bug 1248897). Update: As of 2021 the bug is closed, but the feature is still not enabled by default.

https://caniuse.com/#search=speech

Desirous

still doesn't work in Manjaro Linux – Cirrose