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Yet Hangouts is much lower friction and generally easier to use than Skype! What good alternatives are there to Hangouts? Preferably something that doesn't req

by davedx 11y ago

Yet Hangouts is much lower friction and generally easier to use than Skype! What good alternatives are there to Hangouts? Preferably something that doesn't require flaky browser plugins.

ahjones 11y ago
I like Zoom (http://zoom.us/ http://zoom.us/). I used to use Hangouts, but it consumed a lot of CPU. The free Zoom account allows you to have up to fifty people in a room for forty minutes, or an unlimited length call with just two participants.
- antihero 11y ago
  What's it like on poor connections? What's the quality like?
- xiaoma 11y ago
  I just encountered Zoom this week! I had a conference with a German (I'm in Vietnam at the moment) and she sent me a link to it. I'd never heard of it and was a bit frustrated to need to install another plugin. But it was a great experience compared to Hangouts! The connection quality was on par with Skype and it was super light-weight for something based in the browser. 8.5/10, would use again.
- dorfsmay 11y ago
  I've used zoom.us quite a bit and was family impressed. There's also appear.in which is not as good, but doesn't have all the restrictions the free zoom.us tier has.
continuational 11y ago
There's Firefox Hello: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/hello/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/hello/
- drdaeman 11y ago
  Is there any way to use it to start calls, except for being a Firefox user?
benbenolson 11y ago
After using Hangouts for years now, I've become sick and tired of it, and have finally found an alternative. Unfortunately, this is only for the text/image chat functionality, but it's a very good replacement: https://telegram.org/ https://telegram.org/ It was on the front page of Hacker News just a couple of days ago, and that's where I found out about it. Much nicer clients, open protocol (so you can even make your own clients), reliable, and many more features than Hangouts make this a much better alternative. For voice and video, however, I haven't found a good alternative that is easily accessible to people that don't want to set things up on their computer. Hangouts will just randomly not work for me, depending entirely on random chance, and I still can't find anything more convenient than it.
oddvar 11y ago
There is Matrix (https://matrix.org https://matrix.org) - we support messaging and VoIP via WebRTC. Currently we use Freeswitch for conferencing. Check out some clients here: https://matrix.org/docs/projects/try-matrix-now.html https://matrix.org/docs/projects/try-matrix-now.html
- deleted 11y ago
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deleted 11y ago
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rocky1138 11y ago
The only thing I use Hangouts for is free calling to the US. As soon as that's gone, I'll never use it again.
ex3ndr 11y ago
Our Actor.im - we support good webrtc calls and we are nice unlike others.

by davedx 11y ago

Yet Hangouts is much lower friction and generally easier to use than Skype! What good alternatives are there to Hangouts? Preferably something that doesn't require flaky browser plugins.

ahjones 11y ago

I like Zoom (http://zoom.us/ http://zoom.us/). I used to use Hangouts, but it consumed a lot of CPU. The free Zoom account allows you to have up to fifty people in a room for forty minutes, or an unlimited length call with just two participants.

antihero 11y ago
What's it like on poor connections? What's the quality like?
xiaoma 11y ago
I just encountered Zoom this week! I had a conference with a German (I'm in Vietnam at the moment) and she sent me a link to it. I'd never heard of it and was a bit frustrated to need to install another plugin. But it was a great experience compared to Hangouts! The connection quality was on par with Skype and it was super light-weight for something based in the browser. 8.5/10, would use again.
dorfsmay 11y ago
I've used zoom.us quite a bit and was family impressed. There's also appear.in which is not as good, but doesn't have all the restrictions the free zoom.us tier has.

continuational 11y ago

There's Firefox Hello: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/hello/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/hello/

drdaeman 11y ago
Is there any way to use it to start calls, except for being a Firefox user?

benbenolson 11y ago

After using Hangouts for years now, I've become sick and tired of it, and have finally found an alternative. Unfortunately, this is only for the text/image chat functionality, but it's a very good replacement: https://telegram.org/ https://telegram.org/ It was on the front page of Hacker News just a couple of days ago, and that's where I found out about it. Much nicer clients, open protocol (so you can even make your own clients), reliable, and many more features than Hangouts make this a much better alternative. For voice and video, however, I haven't found a good alternative that is easily accessible to people that don't want to set things up on their computer. Hangouts will just randomly not work for me, depending entirely on random chance, and I still can't find anything more convenient than it.

oddvar 11y ago

There is Matrix (https://matrix.org https://matrix.org) - we support messaging and VoIP via WebRTC. Currently we use Freeswitch for conferencing. Check out some clients here: https://matrix.org/docs/projects/try-matrix-now.html https://matrix.org/docs/projects/try-matrix-now.html

deleted 11y ago
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deleted 11y ago

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rocky1138 11y ago

The only thing I use Hangouts for is free calling to the US. As soon as that's gone, I'll never use it again.

ex3ndr 11y ago

Our Actor.im - we support good webrtc calls and we are nice unlike others.