5 ms·

(disclaimer: I work at El Goog) A number of companies have rightfully banned Zoom's native apps, given how insecure they are. I had previously uninstalled it w

by neil_s 7y ago

(disclaimer: I work at El Goog) A number of companies have rightfully banned Zoom's native apps, given how insecure they are. I had previously uninstalled it when the news about the secret web server they install came out. Google is still allowing use of the web app, but the web app bizarrely doesn't support Grid/Gallery View, which is the main reason my friends/family wanted to use it. Hangouts Meet was optimized for work meetings where most people would be dialing in from high-bandwidth meeting rooms, not everyone individually dialing in from home, but hopefully now they've heard the loud feedback about the especial usefulness of Gallery View during quarantine times and will introduce the feature soon. For now I'm using the Chrome extension that enables this feature client-side using JS/CSS, and staying tf away from Zoom. With how little I used Zoom before quarantine, I don't understand the adoration for it (I found its UI confusing and quality similar to other tools), and I haven't been able to find any benchmarks comparing its video quality for people on less good internet connections (my home network is pretty strong).

jacobsenscott 7y ago
We switched from google hangouts to zoom a while ago because the quality "felt" better. We are a small distributed team where our internet connections run the range of fast to slow. We didn't track numbers or anything, but fewer dropouts, frozen videos, better sound quality, etc. Maybe we all just had better internet days each time we used zoom though. Never know. The UI is initially confusing, but so is the UI for every video chat app I've used. It seems to be the fad to have "clever" UI in video chats apps (controls that auto-hide, non-standard icons, low contrast, non standard control placement (use the standard toolbar luke!) etc. On top of that zoom has always "just worked". The "just worked" thing is now resulting in security woes, but still. Start a meeting, send link. Done. Online works, dial in works. Contrast with hangouts (dropped non-chrome browser support for at least a year). To this day we have users that can't use slack video for unknown reasons (app store slack doesn't work as well as slack installer slack or something). WebEx is some horror show that seems to constantly re-install itself for each meeting. You're lucky if you can get it going before the meeting is over. Where most apps stop at video chat and maybe poor quality screen sharing, zoom has a pretty deep enterprise feature set. Good webinar support, integration with SIP systems, SSO, recording etc.
- kyrra 7y ago
  When you say hangouts, do you mean old hangouts or the newer Hangouts Meet? They are 2 very different products.
  - mbo 7y ago
    It is, as of today, just Google Meet, no "Hangouts".
    - dvirsky 7y ago
      Hangouts still exists, I'm too confused at this stage as to what is what.
    - jeffhou 7y ago
      I thought so as well, but apparently it's called Google Hangouts Meet. https://gsuite.google.com/products/meet/ https://gsuite.google.com/products/meet/ (disclaimer - I work at Google, but not on teams that build video chat software)
      - mbo 7y ago
        Disclaimer: also work at Google https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/8/21214059/google-hangouts-meet-rebrand-video-chat-conferencing https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/8/21214059/google-hangouts-m... you would be incorrect
  - jacobsenscott 7y ago
    When we used it they still called it hangouts.
- adsljfl3 7y ago
  Zoom is better at quality. To give an example, they prioritize audio over anything else. Which makes sense because if you can't understand what the person is saying, you can't have a meeting. So they automatically downgrade or upgrade your video to try to keep latency decent on audio. Meet just has a manual setting where you can up or downgrade video or audio.
dheera 7y ago
I wish more companies would ban WeChat's desktop clients and force them to re-enable the web version at web.wechat.com WeChat now often pops up a notice when you try to use web.wechat.com that translates to "For your account safety you cannot use the web version, and you need to download a Windows or Mac client." Safety my ass -- web is the safest. I know better than you about my safety, Tencent.
- zwaps 7y ago
  What companies would allow weChat apps on company machines or machines where company data is handled? That is insane!
  - dheera 7y ago
    I have seen MANY people install it on company hardware because it's tiring to have long chats on a 5" screen and it's hard to send/receive files through a phone. Many hardware providers send/receive contracts and even firmware hex files over WeChat (WTF, I know, but they do) so you're forced to use it for work if you are in the hardware industry, but for most people Tencent doesn't let you use it from a desktop without a native app. And they try to brainwash you into thinking it's for your own "account safety". BS. Also, Alibaba's conferencing client. If you even have a meeting with anyone at Alibaba, they send you a proprietary desktop client to use for the meeting. More people need to learn to stand up and say no to this. From a corporate executive level, proprietary conferencing apps need to be banned on company-owned machines. What they should be doing is straight-up WebRTC running in a web browser, which works great, and which will work in China as long as you set up signalling servers there.
ehsankia 7y ago
I went from Zoom to Jitsi with my family, because I was tired of it pushing the desktop client to me and the webapp limitations as you point out. Jitsi web supports Grid view, as well as desktop sharing (with audio!). We've been playing Jackbox games over it just fine.
- jtaillon 7y ago
  How do you manage the audio for your games? Do you use the newer audio sharing setup, or have you rigged something up in OBS, etc?
  - ehsankia 7y ago
    Right in Jitsi, you share your screen and Chrome's dialog opens, you go "application window" and select your game, and check the little box "share audio". Here's a GIF from their newest blog post showing it: https://335wvf48o1332cksy23mw1pj-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/system-audio-sharing.gif https://335wvf48o1332cksy23mw1pj-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-...
javier123454321 7y ago
Zoom tends to just work more reliably than other solutions in my experience.

by neil_s 7y ago

jacobsenscott 7y ago

We switched from google hangouts to zoom a while ago because the quality "felt" better. We are a small distributed team where our internet connections run the range of fast to slow. We didn't track numbers or anything, but fewer dropouts, frozen videos, better sound quality, etc. Maybe we all just had better internet days each time we used zoom though. Never know. The UI is initially confusing, but so is the UI for every video chat app I've used. It seems to be the fad to have "clever" UI in video chats apps (controls that auto-hide, non-standard icons, low contrast, non standard control placement (use the standard toolbar luke!) etc. On top of that zoom has always "just worked". The "just worked" thing is now resulting in security woes, but still. Start a meeting, send link. Done. Online works, dial in works. Contrast with hangouts (dropped non-chrome browser support for at least a year). To this day we have users that can't use slack video for unknown reasons (app store slack doesn't work as well as slack installer slack or something). WebEx is some horror show that seems to constantly re-install itself for each meeting. You're lucky if you can get it going before the meeting is over. Where most apps stop at video chat and maybe poor quality screen sharing, zoom has a pretty deep enterprise feature set. Good webinar support, integration with SIP systems, SSO, recording etc.

kyrra 7y ago
When you say hangouts, do you mean old hangouts or the newer Hangouts Meet? They are 2 very different products.
- mbo 7y ago
  It is, as of today, just Google Meet, no "Hangouts".
  - dvirsky 7y ago
    Hangouts still exists, I'm too confused at this stage as to what is what.
  - jeffhou 7y ago
    I thought so as well, but apparently it's called Google Hangouts Meet. https://gsuite.google.com/products/meet/ https://gsuite.google.com/products/meet/ (disclaimer - I work at Google, but not on teams that build video chat software)
    - mbo 7y ago
      Disclaimer: also work at Google https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/8/21214059/google-hangouts-meet-rebrand-video-chat-conferencing https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/8/21214059/google-hangouts-m... you would be incorrect
- jacobsenscott 7y ago
  When we used it they still called it hangouts.
adsljfl3 7y ago
Zoom is better at quality. To give an example, they prioritize audio over anything else. Which makes sense because if you can't understand what the person is saying, you can't have a meeting. So they automatically downgrade or upgrade your video to try to keep latency decent on audio. Meet just has a manual setting where you can up or downgrade video or audio.

dheera 7y ago

I wish more companies would ban WeChat's desktop clients and force them to re-enable the web version at web.wechat.com WeChat now often pops up a notice when you try to use web.wechat.com that translates to "For your account safety you cannot use the web version, and you need to download a Windows or Mac client." Safety my ass -- web is the safest. I know better than you about my safety, Tencent.

zwaps 7y ago
What companies would allow weChat apps on company machines or machines where company data is handled? That is insane!
- dheera 7y ago
  I have seen MANY people install it on company hardware because it's tiring to have long chats on a 5" screen and it's hard to send/receive files through a phone. Many hardware providers send/receive contracts and even firmware hex files over WeChat (WTF, I know, but they do) so you're forced to use it for work if you are in the hardware industry, but for most people Tencent doesn't let you use it from a desktop without a native app. And they try to brainwash you into thinking it's for your own "account safety". BS. Also, Alibaba's conferencing client. If you even have a meeting with anyone at Alibaba, they send you a proprietary desktop client to use for the meeting. More people need to learn to stand up and say no to this. From a corporate executive level, proprietary conferencing apps need to be banned on company-owned machines. What they should be doing is straight-up WebRTC running in a web browser, which works great, and which will work in China as long as you set up signalling servers there.

ehsankia 7y ago

I went from Zoom to Jitsi with my family, because I was tired of it pushing the desktop client to me and the webapp limitations as you point out. Jitsi web supports Grid view, as well as desktop sharing (with audio!). We've been playing Jackbox games over it just fine.

jtaillon 7y ago
How do you manage the audio for your games? Do you use the newer audio sharing setup, or have you rigged something up in OBS, etc?
- ehsankia 7y ago
  Right in Jitsi, you share your screen and Chrome's dialog opens, you go "application window" and select your game, and check the little box "share audio". Here's a GIF from their newest blog post showing it: https://335wvf48o1332cksy23mw1pj-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/system-audio-sharing.gif https://335wvf48o1332cksy23mw1pj-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-...

javier123454321 7y ago

Zoom tends to just work more reliably than other solutions in my experience.