Yes Google's chat strategy is a mess, but this part is great news: > It’s a full rewrite of the Hangouts meeting experience and will work without any plug-ins

Yes Google's chat strategy is a mess, but this part is great news: > It’s a full rewrite of the Hangouts meeting experience and will work without any plug-ins (and Google also promises that it will be lighter on the processor, too, and won’t eat into your battery life or make your laptop’s fans spin at full speed). The team also cut down on the code size and promises that meetings will load “instantly.” Our team spans macOS, Windows, and Linux and each one of us has our own unique bugs with Hangouts ranging from robotic voices to not being able to join existing Hangouts. In short it's a giant mess. I'm glad to see they're starting from scratch, hopefully this time around will be more reliable.