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There are many XMPP free servers, and some clients are awesome. Like conversations.im. Setting up a server is not terribly difficult though. I bet there are so

• ajosh 10y ago
  It still requires you to setup an XMPP server and proper DNS for federation. With hangouts, if someone has a google account, there isn't much else to setup which makes things much easier for non-technical friends & family. Hangouts has other benefits: - All users support the same call/video features - Using GCM means that battery life is better than with long polling, in my experience - Integration with Google Voice means you can add phone users to your video call - Sending images is built in - Single chat history that's synchronized[1] - Works on Linux, Windows, macOS, Android and IOS with the standard clients[2] I've setup an XMPP server before and it wasn't that hard. I have friends/family using Hangouts and Signal messenger. Hangouts provides a pretty smooth experience and is my generally preferred way to initiate a video call with my family who runs a variety of platforms (Andriod, iOS, Windows, macOS, etc) [1] Of course this is possible because of Google being the hub with is the grandparent's concern [2] XMPP also has this but some chat solutions are not as widely available. Of course the web app will work anywhere you can run a modern browser. I'm thinking of the official Chrome extension and I don't know if it works in BSD or other OS's.
• nix0n 10y ago
  conversations.im requires either entering your credit card into Google Play, or installing from F-Droid. That's already too much. I'll set up the server, I'll put time and money into it, but it needs to be a one-step process to add each of my friends or it won't work.