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Not that I'm in favor of this practice, but the one key feature that conference software must have is: it just works™. Nothing turns you off more from a confer

Not that I'm in favor of this practice, but the one key feature that conference software must have is: it just works™. Nothing turns you off more from a conferencing solution than: any problem getting it working right now. When there is just the slightest issue, one person not being able to join, one person not getting voice to work, bad audio, your entire team is blocked/distracted. Which results in a collective distain for the solution and video conferencing as a whole. This extends to getting the solution working for greenfield installs as simple as possible. Because who knows which non-tech users from which department all need to join and can't figure out how to set the permission in their browser right or install/use the other browser that is compatible. So sadly, from a functionality point of view, you want have the software be able to force itself onto the user in the most usable state it can.

t0mas88 7y ago
I'm still curious why everyone thinks Zoom "just works" while others don't. Because in an enterprise context it is often hard to download an executable and run it with sufficient permissions. While Google and Microsoft both offer a product that "just works" with only a browser. What makes Zoom more "just works" than that?
- capableweb 7y ago
  Well, I have a feeling that the praise for zoom going around is not from people working in enterprises, it's people working for everything-but enterprises, who just want a solution that works. In my experience (also not enterprise), Zoom is the simplest solution with the best quality and latency, compared to the alternatives. The UX could be better, but the performance of Zoom for all platforms makes you survive the UX.
  - jrochkind1 7y ago
    Yep, Zoom is the only one I've used where I have never had an audio problem, never a drop out or glitch.
  - tardo99 7y ago
    My company has used Hangouts for years with zero problems. Zoom is mostly just hype.
  - gentleman11 7y ago
    I don’t think you can get much more reliable or simpler then whereby.com
- zuppy 7y ago
  they work for your use case. hangouts can’t handle many users (is it 10 the limit?), which is a deal breaker for me. we’ve tried and people couldn’t join the call. if by microsoft you mean teams, i’m not aware of it working without accounts (not an issue for google as most people have google accounts).
  - gnud 7y ago
    Teams works for "guest users", but they have to be let into the meeting by a "real" user. Also, I think it's possible for companies to disallow guest users on their team instance.
    - lukevp 7y ago
      Teams live can work without logins but you have to make the feed public with a hidden link.
      - zuppy 7y ago
        teams has another issue though: when someone speaks, it cuts the sound for the other people speaking in the same time. in theory this sounds good, but many times it will cut the sound of the active speaker. yes, i think this can be managed with group mute, but zoom doesn’t have this “feature”.
  - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
    > hangouts can’t handle many users (is it 10 the limit?), which is a deal breaker for me. we’ve tried and people couldn’t join the call. My company had a 17 person Hangouts (Meet) meeting on Monday. Actually, we switched to Hangouts from Slack because Slack has a 15 person limit. Is the limit maybe different for "Hangouts" vs Hangouts Meet?
    - zuppy 7y ago
      That’s probably the issue. We were using the free version.
  - 7y ago
- aequitas 7y ago
  We just had a corporate presentation with around 250 people. Normally we use Teams or Slack for internal communication, this was also stated by management, that Zoom should only be used for 'big' meetings like this. I think they know the other solutions will not work as well for bigger groups. I've not had issues with using either solution for small group meetings. Actually I have to go out of my way to run Zoom in the browser instead of using the installer. I have to use Chrome instead of Firefox, download but not install the app and wait for the "or run in browser" link to appear after that. I really don't like macOS installers anyways and passionately hate them as "installing" and App on macOS should be nothing more than moving the .app from a zip or disk image into your /Applications folder. I just don't trust them in not placing additional crap like auto updaters or kext's when I don't need them.
  - lukevp 7y ago
    Why not use Teams Live for this? We have been using zoom and Teams alternately and Teams performance and ease of use has been much better in my experience, but we have yet to do a 200+ all hands so I was curious if there were some footguns with teams live that you may know about. Teams live works on a lot of platforms and also has a web version.
    - reaperducer 7y ago
      Why not use Teams Live for this? My wife was on a Teams videoconference last week. 125 people in four locations from New York to Southern California. An hour into it, half of the people were simultaneously dropped, and not from any particular geography. It was random. And nobody could reconnect for a very long time. It took 45 minutes to restart the meeting. The company is no longer using Teams.
      - freehunter 7y ago
        To be fair I’ve seen the same thing happen with Zoom. During a 2 hour meeting with a client, about half of my team was dropped and couldn’t get back into the meeting for several minutes.
      - 7y ago
- ilikehurdles 7y ago
  Don’t Google and Microsoft answers both require accounts, and carry with them the expectation that everything you do on their platforms is recorded for the purpose of selling ads? Also I regularly attend more than 50-person zoom calls without a hiccup. Google I think requires an enterprise plan to get to that limit, and I don’t even know what the name of their video conferencing product is at this point.
  - bruckie 7y ago
    > Don’t Google and Microsoft answers both require accounts, and carry with them the expectation that everything you do on their platforms is recorded for the purpose of selling ads? For Google, the answers are "sorta but not really", and "no": https://support.google.com/meet/answer/9303164 https://support.google.com/meet/answer/9303164: "Note: Guests on the web don't need a Google account to participate in a meeting." The initiator of a meeting needs a G Suite account, but others can join without one. https://gsuite.google.com/learn-more/security/security-whitepaper/page-6.html https://gsuite.google.com/learn-more/security/security-white...: "Google does not collect, scan or use data in G Suite Core Services for advertising purposes." (Speaking for myself, not Google.)
  - deelowe 7y ago
    I don't think either of those are true for meet.
- rainforest 7y ago
  Zoom has a web client that "just works" but they only show it as an option after they detect that their native client didn't "just work".
  - mulmen 7y ago
    The web client is well hidden, crippled and only works in Chrome. Gallery view does not exist in the web client. Nor the ability to add cat memes to your background.
  - aeyes 7y ago
    That's weird, when I open a meeting link (which would open the native client) at the bottom of the page it says "If you cannot download or run the application, join from your browser.". I have the native client and it still shows me this option.
    - ThePowerOfFuet 7y ago
      The visibility of this link is disabled by default unless the person trying to join attempts (and fails, even if deliberately) to download+install the client at least twice. It can be enabled, but it's not on by default.
- impendia 7y ago
  I'm a college professor, and I'll share my perspective. For one, Zoom did just work. (At least as a participant, rather than an organizer.) I tried it out, and it immediately worked. It did what all of us were expecting, with no fuss. I also tried MS Teams. It seems designed with a different philosophy: that you use the software to do many different things, and you want them all integrated. (For example, it posted my meetings automatically to my Outlook calendar. I had never used this calendar before, and was only dimly aware that it existed.) Moreover, it seems that the expected setup is a bunch of people, all at the same workplace, who communicate with each other consistently. My needs are different, with wildly disparate use cases: a departmental meeting; classes to teach; an online conference (https://www.daniellitt.com/agonize/); https://www.daniellitt.com/agonize/); an online social gathering. Many of the people with whom I communicate don't work for the same employer. And I don't want to configure all of these "teams" in advance. That said, I tried to get MS Teams up and running, to teach my class. This involved multiple emails back and forth to our tech support (it seems that I can't set up a "team" myself; I have to ask IT to do it for me). It didn't have its own whiteboard functionality so I had to download and run some separate software. And, then, in the end... it didn't work. I was trying to teach a class, but my students couldn't see what I was doing. I had no idea why.
  - gameofcode 7y ago
    You're right, MS Teams is definitly better placed as an org-wide communication/collaboration tool, not an external one. They really need to make it easier to communicate with people in external orgs, the org switcher is my biggest complaint. FWIW, IT can allow people in certain groups to make their own teams, it's an admin setting.
    - Onawa 7y ago
      Working within the US NIH, we are forced to submit a ticket for creating any new teams and the entire Teams/Office 365 ecosystem is entirely crippled for us. All new features take forever to be approved and brought online, as well as additional connectors and apps having to go through an extensive 6+ month-long vetting process before being approved. Makes using Teams quite a hassle, but with Skype for Business being the only other approved option for internal chat, it's better than nothing.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- grimjack00 7y ago
  > While Google and Microsoft both offer a product that "just works" with only a browser. But those products don't always "just work", at least not in my recent experience. I have had repeated problems with Google meetings while working with an external entity, and most of my employer is a Microsoft shop, so I've had deal with issues with both Teams and Skype, both via browser and OS X app.
- unlinked_dll 7y ago
  Same question. Not because of the browser thing but just because it doesn't "just work" for me or my team.
- alasdair_ 7y ago
  Google has messenger and hangouts and another video conferencing solution that I don't recall. The reason we ditched hangouts for zoom a few years ago was that hangouts only supported up to ten users, including users whose connection had died and so they had to re-enter the room again. This became extremely annoying - having to stop a conference mid-call to ask some people to disconnect so others could enter, or trying to find out how to kick "ghost" users, was definitely not "just works".
  - benhurmarcel 7y ago
    Google Meet supports up to 250 participants in the enterprise version.
- w1ntermute 7y ago
  As someone who has used a variety of VTC products (Zoom, Webex, BlueJeans, Teams, Skype, etc.) for several years on a daily basis (lots of external VTCs with different companies who use different VTC systems), Zoom is by far the best. The audio and video quality is head and shoulders above the rest (both on PC and mobile) and the interface is dead simple for even the least tech-savvy users. My company uses Zoom, and there have been many instances where, during a VTC call set up by someone at another company (that doesn’t use Zoom), we have switched mid-meeting to Zoom because there’s something wrong with the other VTC system (someone can’t join, can’t hear, can’t speak, can’t share their screen, etc.). And the other options haven’t gotten noticeably better over the years either.
- whatever_dude 7y ago
  Zoom has a browser version as a fallback. Most people use the standalone app because indeed it "just works". That's why you don't hear much about its browser client.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    > Most people use the standalone app because indeed it "just works". Most people use the standalone app because Zoom aggressively pushes it.
- rickyc091 7y ago
  Google requires you to have a Google account. Kids in middle school (ages 12-14) and younger typically don't have an email address. Zoom, on the other hand, lets you join a call without logging in. You can even join straight from the browser if needed without installing anything.
  - benhurmarcel 7y ago
    > Google requires you to have a Google account Not for joining a meeting, no. You just type your name.
- pjkundert 7y ago
  I've been working remotely for years. In my experience, every other solution I've tried is a train-wreck, compared to Zoom (MacBook Pro w/ external Apple monitors). And, as far as I remember, I've tried them all, repeatedly. Even first-class platform-specific solutions like FaceTime are, basically, unusable vs. Zoom. Its amazing, actually. I'm not quite sure how Apple managed to make FaceTime's audio just not work (almost ever), and Zoom just works, every time, on every platform.
- kiliancs 7y ago
  From my perspective, working in the browser is not necessarily "just working", because for many combinations of OS/hardware, the performance is terrible and not only eats battery and will slow down other programs, but also affects the quality of the call (audio and video).
  - sgustard 7y ago
    Also, granting a website access to my camera, granting access to my microphone, and so on; which are really not functions I want to be granting any websites. I don't run a browser to have it randomly turn on surveillance devices. I prefer to run an app to access my camera and quit it when I'm done.
- jwr 7y ago
  > I'm still curious why everyone thinks Zoom "just works" while others don't. I'm also curious. I subscribed to Whereby (https://whereby.com/ https://whereby.com/), where I can send people a URL, which they click and land in my conference room. There is ZERO software they need to install. [For all the "well, actually" folks: yes, it "only" works in every modern browser out there, and it works "only" for up to 12 people. Fine with me.] Zoom has more features, but there are many other solutions that work much better and are WAY simpler. It's just that Zoom is well known, and it's easiest to choose the tool that everyone has heard about.
  - gentleman11 7y ago
    To be more specific, whereby seems to be free for up to 4 people, but then they claim to be able to support 50. Never tested it with 50
    - sudosysgen 7y ago
      Some of my teachers use jitsi, which works on the same principle. The teacher sends a link, you click it, and that's it. Works very well, and no limit.
    - jwr 7y ago
      Specifically, my "Pro" plan allows up to 12 people.
  - danlugo92 7y ago
    I use whereby too. It's great.
tarsinge 7y ago
This is/was maybe true on Windows but on macOS installing an App the standard way is straightforward and any user knows how to do it.
- aequitas 7y ago
  Which standard way? You have: - Install from App store - Drag and drop the .app from zip/dmg - Using a .pkg installer (mostly based on Xcode templates) I'd argue that a lot of users don't know all of these and some even run most of their applications from the ~/Downloads folder.
swiley 7y ago
This still isn’t a good reason to build a native app instead of just using webrtc. Someone should make a PSA site that says something along the lines of “don’t install teleconferencing software because it usually bundles malware; your browser already has the technology built in.”
- manigandham 7y ago
  What do you mean by "bundles malware"? What else is it doing besides teleconferencing?
  - bruckie 7y ago
    https://daringfireball.net/2020/03/regarding_zoom https://daringfireball.net/2020/03/regarding_zoom https://medium.com/bugbountywriteup/zoom-zero-day-4-million-webcams-maybe-an-rce-just-get-them-to-visit-your-website-ac75c83f4ef5 https://medium.com/bugbountywriteup/zoom-zero-day-4-million-... https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/10/20689644/apple-zoom-web-server-automatic-removal-silent-update-webcam-vulnerability https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/10/20689644/apple-zoom-web-s...
    - manigandham 7y ago
      To be clear, that's a security issue with their software but not malware. It's not intended or designed to harm your device.
- aequitas 7y ago
  It is however the reason why this solution is being used instead of all the other ones.
distances 7y ago
I guess it works for some. I've had two Zoom meetings this far, and in both cases the organizer quickly changed to Jitsi as Zoom had distorted audio. Maybe some incompatible software/hardware at some end? I don't know or even care really, but Jitsi worked well with the same participants both times, while the anecdotal Zoom success rate is still 0% for me.
- aequitas 7y ago
  For meetings I host I'm trying to evaluate Jitsi as well, so far without much luck. I'm not hosting that many meeting and the one I did was with someone using Linux not getting screen sharing working. But Jitsi is on my shortlist as I think being open source and self-hostable is the way forward for a tool that could knock Zoom of it's throne.
gwbas1c 7y ago
Good point, but: You can do so much in a browser now. Does teleconference software really need an installed client anymore?
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  In theory. But in practice, as a developer you don't want to depend on the browser support for your whole product. Conferencing features of browsers have been pretty lame, compared to what's possible in a professional product. {edit} My experience: investor took over our startup, made us switch from bespoke technology to web-based conference features. Every feature was compromised, reliability and capacity reduced by 10X.
- rsynnott 7y ago
  Based on my experience with Zoom on the one hand and that Google thing on the other, yes, yes it does.
- m0dest 7y ago
  For better or for worse, WebRTC is very opinionated about codecs and transports. Those might be great choices for some scenarios, but no developer wants their whole business to be constrained it.
- noahtallen 7y ago
  Browser blocking and plugin features can prevent it from working. For example, I’ve been in hangouts meetings where the video feed wouldn’t load because autoplay was blocked on the browser. Of course, you can work around that, but having the Zoom desktop client provides a reliable experience without any tweaking
chadlavi 7y ago
Zoom would "just work" if they didn't force you to install software on your computer in the first place. If google meet can do it, zoom can too.
- wp381640 7y ago
  Google Meet is terrible, there's a reason why everybody switched to Zoom even in an over-crowded market
  - benhurmarcel 7y ago
    What's your problem with Meet? We've switched to it massively after issues with Webex, and it's all very good.
- fiddlerwoaroof 7y ago
  Doesn’t Google Meet depend on a browser plugin they make you install the first time? Hangouts did.
  - bruckie 7y ago
    No, it uses WebRTC. https://support.google.com/meet/answer/7317473 https://support.google.com/meet/answer/7317473
    - tech234a 7y ago
      Apparently a plugin is needed for Internet Explorer, but otherwise isn’t.
gcb0 7y ago
Zoom doesn't simply works. The same way that facebook isn't a good news feed. and paypal isn't a good, neutral, bank. etc etc. But people (like you) unknowingly shill for them because they've feel prey to the marketing and influencers. Advertisement works. And you are living proof of that.
untog 7y ago
It just amazes me that the "just works" solution here is still a native app. Plenty of reasons to use native apps but in 2020 video conferencing really isn't one: WebRTC is capable and supported by every major desktop and mobile browser. It's literally one click and you're done!
- Saaster 7y ago
  None of the WebRTC based options just work, they're all glitchy and cannot scale up to even moderate amounts of users. We have Google Hangouts Meet for free for our org, and we still pay for Zoom because It Just Works.
  - x0x0 7y ago
    Yeah. And high fidelity sync between audio (ideally via phone). Maybe someone does it, but we tried _all_ vendors and settled on Zoom. And screen annotations, and the ability to remember participants' phones and dial them directly (replaces them having to type 9 digit numbers into their phones), etc. Also, Zoom has reached a critical mass where, particularly for sales calls, the remote party is quite likely to have it installed. The network effect here is really valuable.
  - bwb 7y ago
    Same here, we used hangouts for the longest time but it got worse. Zoom just works perfectly all the time.
  - basch 7y ago
    Even having the "unblock this site from camera and microphone" burried in the browser chrome or settings pages somewhere is a dealbreaker. It's too easy for people to mindlessly click "no" to can this access your microphone, because of the way the browser pops it up during first use, instead of during "install."
    - noahtallen 7y ago
      True. Even the adblocker and autoplay blockers can prevent video and audio from working in Hangouts. I have had issues with hangouts when joining meetings with important people — and my browser’s autoplay block feature prevented the video feed from working.

t0mas88 7y ago

I'm still curious why everyone thinks Zoom "just works" while others don't. Because in an enterprise context it is often hard to download an executable and run it with sufficient permissions. While Google and Microsoft both offer a product that "just works" with only a browser. What makes Zoom more "just works" than that?

capableweb 7y ago
Well, I have a feeling that the praise for zoom going around is not from people working in enterprises, it's people working for everything-but enterprises, who just want a solution that works. In my experience (also not enterprise), Zoom is the simplest solution with the best quality and latency, compared to the alternatives. The UX could be better, but the performance of Zoom for all platforms makes you survive the UX.
- jrochkind1 7y ago
  Yep, Zoom is the only one I've used where I have never had an audio problem, never a drop out or glitch.
- tardo99 7y ago
  My company has used Hangouts for years with zero problems. Zoom is mostly just hype.
- gentleman11 7y ago
  I don’t think you can get much more reliable or simpler then whereby.com
zuppy 7y ago
they work for your use case. hangouts can’t handle many users (is it 10 the limit?), which is a deal breaker for me. we’ve tried and people couldn’t join the call. if by microsoft you mean teams, i’m not aware of it working without accounts (not an issue for google as most people have google accounts).
- gnud 7y ago
  Teams works for "guest users", but they have to be let into the meeting by a "real" user. Also, I think it's possible for companies to disallow guest users on their team instance.
  - lukevp 7y ago
    Teams live can work without logins but you have to make the feed public with a hidden link.
    - zuppy 7y ago
      teams has another issue though: when someone speaks, it cuts the sound for the other people speaking in the same time. in theory this sounds good, but many times it will cut the sound of the active speaker. yes, i think this can be managed with group mute, but zoom doesn’t have this “feature”.
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  > hangouts can’t handle many users (is it 10 the limit?), which is a deal breaker for me. we’ve tried and people couldn’t join the call. My company had a 17 person Hangouts (Meet) meeting on Monday. Actually, we switched to Hangouts from Slack because Slack has a 15 person limit. Is the limit maybe different for "Hangouts" vs Hangouts Meet?
  - zuppy 7y ago
    That’s probably the issue. We were using the free version.
- 7y ago
aequitas 7y ago
We just had a corporate presentation with around 250 people. Normally we use Teams or Slack for internal communication, this was also stated by management, that Zoom should only be used for 'big' meetings like this. I think they know the other solutions will not work as well for bigger groups. I've not had issues with using either solution for small group meetings. Actually I have to go out of my way to run Zoom in the browser instead of using the installer. I have to use Chrome instead of Firefox, download but not install the app and wait for the "or run in browser" link to appear after that. I really don't like macOS installers anyways and passionately hate them as "installing" and App on macOS should be nothing more than moving the .app from a zip or disk image into your /Applications folder. I just don't trust them in not placing additional crap like auto updaters or kext's when I don't need them.
- lukevp 7y ago
  Why not use Teams Live for this? We have been using zoom and Teams alternately and Teams performance and ease of use has been much better in my experience, but we have yet to do a 200+ all hands so I was curious if there were some footguns with teams live that you may know about. Teams live works on a lot of platforms and also has a web version.
  - reaperducer 7y ago
    Why not use Teams Live for this? My wife was on a Teams videoconference last week. 125 people in four locations from New York to Southern California. An hour into it, half of the people were simultaneously dropped, and not from any particular geography. It was random. And nobody could reconnect for a very long time. It took 45 minutes to restart the meeting. The company is no longer using Teams.
    - freehunter 7y ago
      To be fair I’ve seen the same thing happen with Zoom. During a 2 hour meeting with a client, about half of my team was dropped and couldn’t get back into the meeting for several minutes.
    - 7y ago
ilikehurdles 7y ago
Don’t Google and Microsoft answers both require accounts, and carry with them the expectation that everything you do on their platforms is recorded for the purpose of selling ads? Also I regularly attend more than 50-person zoom calls without a hiccup. Google I think requires an enterprise plan to get to that limit, and I don’t even know what the name of their video conferencing product is at this point.
- bruckie 7y ago
  > Don’t Google and Microsoft answers both require accounts, and carry with them the expectation that everything you do on their platforms is recorded for the purpose of selling ads? For Google, the answers are "sorta but not really", and "no": https://support.google.com/meet/answer/9303164 https://support.google.com/meet/answer/9303164: "Note: Guests on the web don't need a Google account to participate in a meeting." The initiator of a meeting needs a G Suite account, but others can join without one. https://gsuite.google.com/learn-more/security/security-whitepaper/page-6.html https://gsuite.google.com/learn-more/security/security-white...: "Google does not collect, scan or use data in G Suite Core Services for advertising purposes." (Speaking for myself, not Google.)
- deelowe 7y ago
  I don't think either of those are true for meet.
rainforest 7y ago
Zoom has a web client that "just works" but they only show it as an option after they detect that their native client didn't "just work".
- mulmen 7y ago
  The web client is well hidden, crippled and only works in Chrome. Gallery view does not exist in the web client. Nor the ability to add cat memes to your background.
- aeyes 7y ago
  That's weird, when I open a meeting link (which would open the native client) at the bottom of the page it says "If you cannot download or run the application, join from your browser.". I have the native client and it still shows me this option.
  - ThePowerOfFuet 7y ago
    The visibility of this link is disabled by default unless the person trying to join attempts (and fails, even if deliberately) to download+install the client at least twice. It can be enabled, but it's not on by default.
impendia 7y ago
I'm a college professor, and I'll share my perspective. For one, Zoom did just work. (At least as a participant, rather than an organizer.) I tried it out, and it immediately worked. It did what all of us were expecting, with no fuss. I also tried MS Teams. It seems designed with a different philosophy: that you use the software to do many different things, and you want them all integrated. (For example, it posted my meetings automatically to my Outlook calendar. I had never used this calendar before, and was only dimly aware that it existed.) Moreover, it seems that the expected setup is a bunch of people, all at the same workplace, who communicate with each other consistently. My needs are different, with wildly disparate use cases: a departmental meeting; classes to teach; an online conference (https://www.daniellitt.com/agonize/); https://www.daniellitt.com/agonize/); an online social gathering. Many of the people with whom I communicate don't work for the same employer. And I don't want to configure all of these "teams" in advance. That said, I tried to get MS Teams up and running, to teach my class. This involved multiple emails back and forth to our tech support (it seems that I can't set up a "team" myself; I have to ask IT to do it for me). It didn't have its own whiteboard functionality so I had to download and run some separate software. And, then, in the end... it didn't work. I was trying to teach a class, but my students couldn't see what I was doing. I had no idea why.
- gameofcode 7y ago
  You're right, MS Teams is definitly better placed as an org-wide communication/collaboration tool, not an external one. They really need to make it easier to communicate with people in external orgs, the org switcher is my biggest complaint. FWIW, IT can allow people in certain groups to make their own teams, it's an admin setting.
  - Onawa 7y ago
    Working within the US NIH, we are forced to submit a ticket for creating any new teams and the entire Teams/Office 365 ecosystem is entirely crippled for us. All new features take forever to be approved and brought online, as well as additional connectors and apps having to go through an extensive 6+ month-long vetting process before being approved. Makes using Teams quite a hassle, but with Skype for Business being the only other approved option for internal chat, it's better than nothing.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
grimjack00 7y ago
> While Google and Microsoft both offer a product that "just works" with only a browser. But those products don't always "just work", at least not in my recent experience. I have had repeated problems with Google meetings while working with an external entity, and most of my employer is a Microsoft shop, so I've had deal with issues with both Teams and Skype, both via browser and OS X app.
unlinked_dll 7y ago
Same question. Not because of the browser thing but just because it doesn't "just work" for me or my team.
alasdair_ 7y ago
Google has messenger and hangouts and another video conferencing solution that I don't recall. The reason we ditched hangouts for zoom a few years ago was that hangouts only supported up to ten users, including users whose connection had died and so they had to re-enter the room again. This became extremely annoying - having to stop a conference mid-call to ask some people to disconnect so others could enter, or trying to find out how to kick "ghost" users, was definitely not "just works".
- benhurmarcel 7y ago
  Google Meet supports up to 250 participants in the enterprise version.
w1ntermute 7y ago
As someone who has used a variety of VTC products (Zoom, Webex, BlueJeans, Teams, Skype, etc.) for several years on a daily basis (lots of external VTCs with different companies who use different VTC systems), Zoom is by far the best. The audio and video quality is head and shoulders above the rest (both on PC and mobile) and the interface is dead simple for even the least tech-savvy users. My company uses Zoom, and there have been many instances where, during a VTC call set up by someone at another company (that doesn’t use Zoom), we have switched mid-meeting to Zoom because there’s something wrong with the other VTC system (someone can’t join, can’t hear, can’t speak, can’t share their screen, etc.). And the other options haven’t gotten noticeably better over the years either.
whatever_dude 7y ago
Zoom has a browser version as a fallback. Most people use the standalone app because indeed it "just works". That's why you don't hear much about its browser client.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  > Most people use the standalone app because indeed it "just works". Most people use the standalone app because Zoom aggressively pushes it.
rickyc091 7y ago
Google requires you to have a Google account. Kids in middle school (ages 12-14) and younger typically don't have an email address. Zoom, on the other hand, lets you join a call without logging in. You can even join straight from the browser if needed without installing anything.
- benhurmarcel 7y ago
  > Google requires you to have a Google account Not for joining a meeting, no. You just type your name.
pjkundert 7y ago
I've been working remotely for years. In my experience, every other solution I've tried is a train-wreck, compared to Zoom (MacBook Pro w/ external Apple monitors). And, as far as I remember, I've tried them all, repeatedly. Even first-class platform-specific solutions like FaceTime are, basically, unusable vs. Zoom. Its amazing, actually. I'm not quite sure how Apple managed to make FaceTime's audio just not work (almost ever), and Zoom just works, every time, on every platform.
kiliancs 7y ago
From my perspective, working in the browser is not necessarily "just working", because for many combinations of OS/hardware, the performance is terrible and not only eats battery and will slow down other programs, but also affects the quality of the call (audio and video).
- sgustard 7y ago
  Also, granting a website access to my camera, granting access to my microphone, and so on; which are really not functions I want to be granting any websites. I don't run a browser to have it randomly turn on surveillance devices. I prefer to run an app to access my camera and quit it when I'm done.
jwr 7y ago
> I'm still curious why everyone thinks Zoom "just works" while others don't. I'm also curious. I subscribed to Whereby (https://whereby.com/ https://whereby.com/), where I can send people a URL, which they click and land in my conference room. There is ZERO software they need to install. [For all the "well, actually" folks: yes, it "only" works in every modern browser out there, and it works "only" for up to 12 people. Fine with me.] Zoom has more features, but there are many other solutions that work much better and are WAY simpler. It's just that Zoom is well known, and it's easiest to choose the tool that everyone has heard about.
- gentleman11 7y ago
  To be more specific, whereby seems to be free for up to 4 people, but then they claim to be able to support 50. Never tested it with 50
  - sudosysgen 7y ago
    Some of my teachers use jitsi, which works on the same principle. The teacher sends a link, you click it, and that's it. Works very well, and no limit.
  - jwr 7y ago
    Specifically, my "Pro" plan allows up to 12 people.
- danlugo92 7y ago
  I use whereby too. It's great.

tarsinge 7y ago

This is/was maybe true on Windows but on macOS installing an App the standard way is straightforward and any user knows how to do it.

aequitas 7y ago
Which standard way? You have: - Install from App store - Drag and drop the .app from zip/dmg - Using a .pkg installer (mostly based on Xcode templates) I'd argue that a lot of users don't know all of these and some even run most of their applications from the ~/Downloads folder.

swiley 7y ago

This still isn’t a good reason to build a native app instead of just using webrtc. Someone should make a PSA site that says something along the lines of “don’t install teleconferencing software because it usually bundles malware; your browser already has the technology built in.”

manigandham 7y ago
What do you mean by "bundles malware"? What else is it doing besides teleconferencing?
- bruckie 7y ago
  https://daringfireball.net/2020/03/regarding_zoom https://daringfireball.net/2020/03/regarding_zoom https://medium.com/bugbountywriteup/zoom-zero-day-4-million-webcams-maybe-an-rce-just-get-them-to-visit-your-website-ac75c83f4ef5 https://medium.com/bugbountywriteup/zoom-zero-day-4-million-... https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/10/20689644/apple-zoom-web-server-automatic-removal-silent-update-webcam-vulnerability https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/10/20689644/apple-zoom-web-s...
  - manigandham 7y ago
    To be clear, that's a security issue with their software but not malware. It's not intended or designed to harm your device.
aequitas 7y ago
It is however the reason why this solution is being used instead of all the other ones.

distances 7y ago

I guess it works for some. I've had two Zoom meetings this far, and in both cases the organizer quickly changed to Jitsi as Zoom had distorted audio. Maybe some incompatible software/hardware at some end? I don't know or even care really, but Jitsi worked well with the same participants both times, while the anecdotal Zoom success rate is still 0% for me.

aequitas 7y ago
For meetings I host I'm trying to evaluate Jitsi as well, so far without much luck. I'm not hosting that many meeting and the one I did was with someone using Linux not getting screen sharing working. But Jitsi is on my shortlist as I think being open source and self-hostable is the way forward for a tool that could knock Zoom of it's throne.

gwbas1c 7y ago

Good point, but: You can do so much in a browser now. Does teleconference software really need an installed client anymore?

JoeAltmaier 7y ago
In theory. But in practice, as a developer you don't want to depend on the browser support for your whole product. Conferencing features of browsers have been pretty lame, compared to what's possible in a professional product. {edit} My experience: investor took over our startup, made us switch from bespoke technology to web-based conference features. Every feature was compromised, reliability and capacity reduced by 10X.
rsynnott 7y ago
Based on my experience with Zoom on the one hand and that Google thing on the other, yes, yes it does.
m0dest 7y ago
For better or for worse, WebRTC is very opinionated about codecs and transports. Those might be great choices for some scenarios, but no developer wants their whole business to be constrained it.
noahtallen 7y ago
Browser blocking and plugin features can prevent it from working. For example, I’ve been in hangouts meetings where the video feed wouldn’t load because autoplay was blocked on the browser. Of course, you can work around that, but having the Zoom desktop client provides a reliable experience without any tweaking

chadlavi 7y ago

Zoom would "just work" if they didn't force you to install software on your computer in the first place. If google meet can do it, zoom can too.

wp381640 7y ago
Google Meet is terrible, there's a reason why everybody switched to Zoom even in an over-crowded market
- benhurmarcel 7y ago
  What's your problem with Meet? We've switched to it massively after issues with Webex, and it's all very good.
fiddlerwoaroof 7y ago
Doesn’t Google Meet depend on a browser plugin they make you install the first time? Hangouts did.
- bruckie 7y ago
  No, it uses WebRTC. https://support.google.com/meet/answer/7317473 https://support.google.com/meet/answer/7317473
  - tech234a 7y ago
    Apparently a plugin is needed for Internet Explorer, but otherwise isn’t.

gcb0 7y ago

Zoom doesn't simply works. The same way that facebook isn't a good news feed. and paypal isn't a good, neutral, bank. etc etc. But people (like you) unknowingly shill for them because they've feel prey to the marketing and influencers. Advertisement works. And you are living proof of that.

untog 7y ago

It just amazes me that the "just works" solution here is still a native app. Plenty of reasons to use native apps but in 2020 video conferencing really isn't one: WebRTC is capable and supported by every major desktop and mobile browser. It's literally one click and you're done!

Saaster 7y ago
None of the WebRTC based options just work, they're all glitchy and cannot scale up to even moderate amounts of users. We have Google Hangouts Meet for free for our org, and we still pay for Zoom because It Just Works.
- x0x0 7y ago
  Yeah. And high fidelity sync between audio (ideally via phone). Maybe someone does it, but we tried _all_ vendors and settled on Zoom. And screen annotations, and the ability to remember participants' phones and dial them directly (replaces them having to type 9 digit numbers into their phones), etc. Also, Zoom has reached a critical mass where, particularly for sales calls, the remote party is quite likely to have it installed. The network effect here is really valuable.
- bwb 7y ago
  Same here, we used hangouts for the longest time but it got worse. Zoom just works perfectly all the time.
- basch 7y ago
  Even having the "unblock this site from camera and microphone" burried in the browser chrome or settings pages somewhere is a dealbreaker. It's too easy for people to mindlessly click "no" to can this access your microphone, because of the way the browser pops it up during first use, instead of during "install."
  - noahtallen 7y ago
    True. Even the adblocker and autoplay blockers can prevent video and audio from working in Hangouts. I have had issues with hangouts when joining meetings with important people — and my browser’s autoplay block feature prevented the video feed from working.