Getting a WebGL Implementation
WebGL is currently under development, and is supported in the latest builds of several browsers. Here are instructions on how to obtain a copy of a browser supporting the provisional WebGL specification. As the specification nears completion, expect that browsers will have this functionality built in to their latest releases, and not require any manual steps to enable it.
Firefox
WebGL is supported in Firefox/4.0b8+ by default (and in previous betas with "webgl.enabled_for_all_sites" set to true in about:config.) It's also available in Firefox Nightly builds.
The implementation requires working OpenGL 2.1 drivers and the availability of PBuffers.
If OpenGL is not available, or for testing/debugging purposes, software rendering can be used through OSMesa (off-screen Mesa), by setting the "webgl.osmesalib" variable to point to the OSMesa shared library (typically /usr/lib/libOSMesa.so). Note that the OSMesa library is required to use "gl" prefixes, not "mgl".
Safari
WebGL is supported on Mac OS X 10.6 in the WebKit nightly builds.
After downloading and installing the browser, open the Terminal and type the following:
defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitWebGLEnabled -bool YES
This command only needs to be run once. All future invocations of the browser will run with WebGL enabled.
Chrome/Chromium
WebGL is available in the stable release of Chrome.
To test the most up-to-date code on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows, you can download the continuous builds of Chromium. Chromium is the Open Source project behind the Google Chrome browser.
- Linux 32-bit: http://build.chromium.org/f/chromium/continuous/linux/LATEST/
- Linux 64-bit: http://build.chromium.org/f/chromium/continuous/linux64/LATEST/
- Mac OS X: http://build.chromium.org/f/chromium/continuous/mac/LATEST/
- Windows: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/chromesxs (the Chrome Canary Build)
Linux/32, Mac point to the folder containing chrome-linux.zip, chrome-mac.zip, or chrome-win32.zip. Unpack the zip archive and run the chrome executable in the resulting directory. Windows has the Chrome Canary build which should just install.
Please report issues you find to either the public WebGL mailing list or via the Chromium issue tracker.
Opera
WebGL is supported on Windows in the Opera 11 preview build. Support for other operating systems is underway.