9 ms·

I can think of 3 possible explanations for this "temporary issue" (that Google should have seen coming literal years ago): 1. Google is swinging its market sha

I can think of 3 possible explanations for this "temporary issue" (that Google should have seen coming literal years ago): 1. Google is swinging its market share around in the desktop browser market to further squeeze Firefox, a much smaller competitor 2. Google hasn't allocated any resources to porting Hangouts away from NPAPI plugins presumably because it has already put Hangouts for the desktop on life support, focusing resources on a similar initiative like Allo or whatever the flavor of the month is 3. Mozilla somehow dropped the ball on writing a sufficiently capable WebRTC implementation despite having implemented a Hangouts / Skype competitor in Firefox Hello Any others?

dragonwriter 10y ago
Yes, Google's already announced (when they announced shutting down the API) they are doing a major pivot for Hangouts to be an enterprise messaging app (which seems to have been quietly launched as Meet by Hangouts [0]), so presumably all the resources have gone into the redesign and not maintenance of the current, legacy consumer app. [0] https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/28/google-quietly-launches-meet-an-enterprise-friendly-version-of-hangouts/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/28/google-quietly-launches-me...
cpeterso 10y ago
> 3. Mozilla somehow dropped the ball on writing a sufficiently capable WebRTC implementation Hangouts on Chrome uses NaCl (for video processing like hats) and non-standard features of WebRTC that are not available in other browsers: https://webrtchacks.com/hangout-analysis-philipp-hancke/ https://webrtchacks.com/hangout-analysis-philipp-hancke/
SquareWheel 10y ago
I'm going to guess #2 is the most likely situation. They didn't allocate any resources to maintenance, and now the time has expired and they're scrambling to make a cross-compatible webapp that doesn't depend on plugins.
geofft 10y ago
Worth noting that Google Hangouts isn't entirely Google-developed: my understanding is that all of the old NPAPI plugin, some of the current browser codec support and server code, and most (?) of the enterprise Hangouts stuff is developed by Vidyo. http://blog.vidyo.com/vidyo-news/google-vidyo-vp9-webrtc/ http://blog.vidyo.com/vidyo-news/google-vidyo-vp9-webrtc/

dragonwriter 10y ago

Yes, Google's already announced (when they announced shutting down the API) they are doing a major pivot for Hangouts to be an enterprise messaging app (which seems to have been quietly launched as Meet by Hangouts [0]), so presumably all the resources have gone into the redesign and not maintenance of the current, legacy consumer app. [0] https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/28/google-quietly-launches-meet-an-enterprise-friendly-version-of-hangouts/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/28/google-quietly-launches-me...

cpeterso 10y ago

> 3. Mozilla somehow dropped the ball on writing a sufficiently capable WebRTC implementation Hangouts on Chrome uses NaCl (for video processing like hats) and non-standard features of WebRTC that are not available in other browsers: https://webrtchacks.com/hangout-analysis-philipp-hancke/ https://webrtchacks.com/hangout-analysis-philipp-hancke/

SquareWheel 10y ago

I'm going to guess #2 is the most likely situation. They didn't allocate any resources to maintenance, and now the time has expired and they're scrambling to make a cross-compatible webapp that doesn't depend on plugins.

geofft 10y ago

Worth noting that Google Hangouts isn't entirely Google-developed: my understanding is that all of the old NPAPI plugin, some of the current browser codec support and server code, and most (?) of the enterprise Hangouts stuff is developed by Vidyo. http://blog.vidyo.com/vidyo-news/google-vidyo-vp9-webrtc/ http://blog.vidyo.com/vidyo-news/google-vidyo-vp9-webrtc/