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Why do people keep saying it just works? It just works if you install their app, probably. But audio doesn't work at all in Firefox. That's not really just work

Why do people keep saying it just works? It just works if you install their app, probably. But audio doesn't work at all in Firefox. That's not really just works for me.

wutbrodo 7y ago
Yea, Hangouts is a lot more "it just works" than Zoom is for me. That being said, the quality of the actual calls on Zoom is _way_ better than Hangouts.
- devin 7y ago
  I mean, I don't really know how "consistently high call quality" is not the most important feature of any video chat application. My experience on hangouts has always been garbage. Delays, choppy sound, my machine starts going insane while rendering other people's live video. It may just work in the sense that you can immediately use it, but if even 20% of the time you use it the call quality sucks, then it's a crap product IMO.
  - wutbrodo 7y ago
    > It may just work in the sense that you can immediately use it, but if even 20% of the time you use it the call quality sucks, then it's a crap product IMO. "it just works" doesn't mean "its a superior product". I use Zoom over hangouts whenever I'm on a call with more than ~3 people, but automatic gcal integration + being fully functional from a browser means that hangouts makes more sense sometimes. (I also don't have nearly the amount of issues you do with hangouts. The biggest problem for me is how much worse they handle crosstalk, which isn't an issue when there are only a couple of people on a call.
- hyperluz 7y ago
  Hangouts is going to be discontinued. Hangouts meet is limited to 720p and sharing screen is limited to fcking 5 FPS. Repeat with me, three times: Hangouts scks for on-line presentations Hangouts scks for on-line presentations Hangouts scks for on-line presentations
  - twojacobtwo 7y ago
    Aside from the fact that you're wrong, I think you need to take a break from the internet. You seem stressed.
    - hyperluz 7y ago
      Aside from the fact I'm not wrong. I think you need to source and/or explain your unfounded claims: Google Delays Hangouts Shutdown Until June 2020 https://www.extremetech.com/internet/297037-google-delays-hangouts-shutdown-until-june-2020 https://www.extremetech.com/internet/297037-google-delays-ha... WebRTC Internals in Chrome with frame rate capped at 5 FPS while screen sharing: https://www.reddit.com/r/chromeos/comments/absxt2/chromebox_for_meetings_screen_sharing_slow_any/ https://www.reddit.com/r/chromeos/comments/absxt2/chromebox_... Screen Share through Hangouts/Meet with high FPS? R: Nope https://www.reddit.com/r/chromeos/comments/fo60me/screen_share_through_hangoutsmeet_with_high_fps/ https://www.reddit.com/r/chromeos/comments/fo60me/screen_sha...
      - bjoli 7y ago
        hangouts meet does 1080p (whether it works now during the covid pandemic I don't know) and is Google's replacement for the regular hangouts. it has been available for companies and has been part of g-suite for enterprise since 2017.
        hyperluz 7y ago
        Where I work, it defaults the webcam resolutions to 360p and we can only choose 720p for our 1080p hardware. Anyway, my biggest concert is with lack of fluidity of slide/screen sharing. It is not viable for presentations with animations or where the presenter needs to point with mouse/cursor to a specific point or area of the slide (for example, a point in a curve in a graph). I work with this. I'm struggling with this tools first hand. My impression is there a lot of opinions here from people which is not using these tools.
        7y ago
- mcv 7y ago
  Is Hangouts now the same as Meet, or does Google have two different products? Hangouts used to work fine back when it was integrated with Google+ (I miss those days), but I just tried to go to a meet for my son's school, where nobody could see or hear us, and Meet claimed the mic was muted by the system, while the system said it was turned on and the browser had access. That's clearly not "it just works", but apparently nothing is.
devin 7y ago
I'm not sure about "just works", but I am sure about "works" in the sense that is head and shoulders above every other video chat app I've used when it comes to audio and video quality, especially for large numbers of participants, audio sharing, document camera sharing, multiple participants sharing simultaneously, and there are plenty more. I've never used the web version, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's not the same experience. The video and audio encoding and decoding stuff seems like it just makes more sense as a native app. Given the number of variables that browsers, versions, sandboxing, etc. bring to the equation, I can tell you where I'd spend the majority of my efforts if I were doing video chat: on a great native app. You have a lot more control over that experience, IMHO. Anyway, your comment reads to me like someone who will never install it, but I would encourage you to at least test out the difference to see why it's become so popular.
- nicoburns 7y ago
  Yeah, the only other video app I've used that approaches the call quality is Slack. I've not tried to use that with more than a handful of people though.
  - PetahNZ 7y ago
    Slack was by far the worst of all the ones we tried.
  - girvo 7y ago
    Slack would be great if my team didn’t constantly have issues with it dropping audio or video altogether when attempting to connect, and that’s if the connection works in the first place! A shame, because we’d love to use only a single app for our comms...
r00fus 7y ago
Neither does Webex's browser version - even though I give it permissions, audio requires Webex to call me. Latest Safari/macOS.
- soylentcola 7y ago
  We've run into a lot of this lately as well (working in a university supporting online classes for the past week or two). I know it's not ideal, but Firefox and Chrome don't seem to have this issue. Asking someone to use a different browser is annoying, but it's a workaround that seems to be effective so far.
crazygringo 7y ago
This is likely why they really push you to install the app, rather than use the browser version. They have a lot more ability to ensure it works when it's their own binary. When you're relying on a bunch of browser functions, it's way harder. The browser version is a last resort.
reggieband 7y ago
For every N users that say something works, you will always find M users that say it doesn't. For good products the ratio of N:M (works:doesn't) is high in the direction of N (works). So people keep saying "it just works" because Zoom has a noticeably high ratio of works compared to almost any other video conferencing software. It does not mean it works 100% of the time flawlessly for every single user ever always and forever. FWIW, of the hundreds of Zoom calls I've had, many with non-technical people, I have yet to encounter any issues. I cannot say the same for most other video conferencing products I have used. YMMV, take with grain of salt, caveat emptor, etc.

Why do people keep saying it just works? It just works if you install their app, probably. But audio doesn't work at all in Firefox. That's not really just works for me.

wutbrodo 7y ago

Yea, Hangouts is a lot more "it just works" than Zoom is for me. That being said, the quality of the actual calls on Zoom is _way_ better than Hangouts.

devin 7y ago
I mean, I don't really know how "consistently high call quality" is not the most important feature of any video chat application. My experience on hangouts has always been garbage. Delays, choppy sound, my machine starts going insane while rendering other people's live video. It may just work in the sense that you can immediately use it, but if even 20% of the time you use it the call quality sucks, then it's a crap product IMO.
- wutbrodo 7y ago
  > It may just work in the sense that you can immediately use it, but if even 20% of the time you use it the call quality sucks, then it's a crap product IMO. "it just works" doesn't mean "its a superior product". I use Zoom over hangouts whenever I'm on a call with more than ~3 people, but automatic gcal integration + being fully functional from a browser means that hangouts makes more sense sometimes. (I also don't have nearly the amount of issues you do with hangouts. The biggest problem for me is how much worse they handle crosstalk, which isn't an issue when there are only a couple of people on a call.
hyperluz 7y ago
Hangouts is going to be discontinued. Hangouts meet is limited to 720p and sharing screen is limited to fcking 5 FPS. Repeat with me, three times: Hangouts scks for on-line presentations Hangouts scks for on-line presentations Hangouts scks for on-line presentations
- twojacobtwo 7y ago
  Aside from the fact that you're wrong, I think you need to take a break from the internet. You seem stressed.
  - hyperluz 7y ago
    Aside from the fact I'm not wrong. I think you need to source and/or explain your unfounded claims: Google Delays Hangouts Shutdown Until June 2020 https://www.extremetech.com/internet/297037-google-delays-hangouts-shutdown-until-june-2020 https://www.extremetech.com/internet/297037-google-delays-ha... WebRTC Internals in Chrome with frame rate capped at 5 FPS while screen sharing: https://www.reddit.com/r/chromeos/comments/absxt2/chromebox_for_meetings_screen_sharing_slow_any/ https://www.reddit.com/r/chromeos/comments/absxt2/chromebox_... Screen Share through Hangouts/Meet with high FPS? R: Nope https://www.reddit.com/r/chromeos/comments/fo60me/screen_share_through_hangoutsmeet_with_high_fps/ https://www.reddit.com/r/chromeos/comments/fo60me/screen_sha...
    - bjoli 7y ago
      hangouts meet does 1080p (whether it works now during the covid pandemic I don't know) and is Google's replacement for the regular hangouts. it has been available for companies and has been part of g-suite for enterprise since 2017.
      - hyperluz 7y ago
        Where I work, it defaults the webcam resolutions to 360p and we can only choose 720p for our 1080p hardware. Anyway, my biggest concert is with lack of fluidity of slide/screen sharing. It is not viable for presentations with animations or where the presenter needs to point with mouse/cursor to a specific point or area of the slide (for example, a point in a curve in a graph). I work with this. I'm struggling with this tools first hand. My impression is there a lot of opinions here from people which is not using these tools.
        7y ago
mcv 7y ago
Is Hangouts now the same as Meet, or does Google have two different products? Hangouts used to work fine back when it was integrated with Google+ (I miss those days), but I just tried to go to a meet for my son's school, where nobody could see or hear us, and Meet claimed the mic was muted by the system, while the system said it was turned on and the browser had access. That's clearly not "it just works", but apparently nothing is.

devin 7y ago

I'm not sure about "just works", but I am sure about "works" in the sense that is head and shoulders above every other video chat app I've used when it comes to audio and video quality, especially for large numbers of participants, audio sharing, document camera sharing, multiple participants sharing simultaneously, and there are plenty more. I've never used the web version, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's not the same experience. The video and audio encoding and decoding stuff seems like it just makes more sense as a native app. Given the number of variables that browsers, versions, sandboxing, etc. bring to the equation, I can tell you where I'd spend the majority of my efforts if I were doing video chat: on a great native app. You have a lot more control over that experience, IMHO. Anyway, your comment reads to me like someone who will never install it, but I would encourage you to at least test out the difference to see why it's become so popular.

nicoburns 7y ago
Yeah, the only other video app I've used that approaches the call quality is Slack. I've not tried to use that with more than a handful of people though.
- PetahNZ 7y ago
  Slack was by far the worst of all the ones we tried.
- girvo 7y ago
  Slack would be great if my team didn’t constantly have issues with it dropping audio or video altogether when attempting to connect, and that’s if the connection works in the first place! A shame, because we’d love to use only a single app for our comms...

r00fus 7y ago

Neither does Webex's browser version - even though I give it permissions, audio requires Webex to call me. Latest Safari/macOS.

soylentcola 7y ago
We've run into a lot of this lately as well (working in a university supporting online classes for the past week or two). I know it's not ideal, but Firefox and Chrome don't seem to have this issue. Asking someone to use a different browser is annoying, but it's a workaround that seems to be effective so far.

crazygringo 7y ago

This is likely why they really push you to install the app, rather than use the browser version. They have a lot more ability to ensure it works when it's their own binary. When you're relying on a bunch of browser functions, it's way harder. The browser version is a last resort.

reggieband 7y ago

For every N users that say something works, you will always find M users that say it doesn't. For good products the ratio of N:M (works:doesn't) is high in the direction of N (works). So people keep saying "it just works" because Zoom has a noticeably high ratio of works compared to almost any other video conferencing software. It does not mean it works 100% of the time flawlessly for every single user ever always and forever. FWIW, of the hundreds of Zoom calls I've had, many with non-technical people, I have yet to encounter any issues. I cannot say the same for most other video conferencing products I have used. YMMV, take with grain of salt, caveat emptor, etc.