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Zoom is a company I have loved so far, but a lot of this is starting to really rub me the wrong way and I really don't want to have to go find another solution.

Zoom is a company I have loved so far, but a lot of this is starting to really rub me the wrong way and I really don't want to have to go find another solution. However, without some sort of reversal, this is enough for me to deal with the mess of doing that.

mushufasa 6y ago
I've tried Google Meet, Jitsi, and some other things, but Zoom is the only service that my 6+ year old laptop can handle for more than 5 min without nosediving into 100% CPU usage and freezing up. Does anyone have other suggestions? Either for other services or for troubleshooting Jitsi?
- 11235813213455 6y ago
  agreed that google meet is a CPU killer
- gnud 6y ago
  You could give Whereby [1] a try. I really liked it when it was named "appear.in" (that's now a completely different company), and used it for a bit, until my work switched to Teams. Whereby is, as far as I can tell, completely owned by a Norwegian registered company. 1: https://whereby.com https://whereby.com
  - tlear 6y ago
    I really liked it, then they broke it on Safari. I still use it on Firefox, but it is annoying to switch just for using it
    - odinho 6y ago
      We have used a lot of time making it work on Safari. And we continue to use quite substantial resources on it. Their webrtc implementation is quite new, and not as stable as Chrome and Firefox. And with new code comes new bugs. There is currently a bug with audio, where it'll crash in Safari, -- and we have had some issues reconnects that was more our fault (though Firefox and Chrome is much more forgiving). We have a workaround for the first, and will be doing a fix for the second once we're reasonably sure it won't regress other browsers. Is it any of those issues you talk about? Or is it something else? (I'm not personally familiar with the Safari issues, btw, since I'm a Linux user, but I keep an eye on Firefox and Chromium-based browsers)
      - tlear 6y ago
        Safari does not crash, but audio is not working. I will play with it today and send bug report. Might help you guys out, I really like it otherwise
      - azinman2 6y ago
        If you have a good repro please send to https://bugreport.apple.com https://bugreport.apple.com or contact Apple Developer Support.
  - odinho 6y ago
    A Whereby-developer here. It's awesome you recommend us. <3 But we'll also kill your CPU ^_^ You can turn on "mobile mode" in advanced device settings, and it should be a bit better. But we're a bit limited in how CPU-friendly we really can be, living in the browser. Not that we can't improve, there's certainly extra tricks we could try - but not easily without also lowering fps and resolution. I don't think "low resource use" is a big selling-argument for our product. Video can be quite heavy.
    - odinho 6y ago
      Actually, if you are using 4+ rooms, we will in many cases be better than some other webrtc services because we for these bigger rooms use a server in the middle to distribute all the streams. That will result in lower resource use. You only encode and send once, and it is distributed by the server. But if other webrtc kills CPU on 4 or less, we probably won't be much better. This "more than 4 room" is not p2p and end-to-end encrypted, since the server (SFU) needs to read and change some headers. So it is a tradeoff. There's now "insertable streams" which allow you to do encryption on the media client side, but it's a test for now: https://webrtchacks.com/true-end-to-end-encryption-with-webrtc-insertable-streams/ https://webrtchacks.com/true-end-to-end-encryption-with-webr...
    - unicornporn 6y ago
      Nice! Fellow Scandinavian here. Just some feedback. I think the free tier was a little unclear. > Free > Personal use > 1 user > 1 meeting room I have trouble reading this. It's as if I coule only create one room for myself without having anybody to chat with.
      - odinho 6y ago
        Hehe, I see. Yeah copy and marketing is hard. I think we should try to re-do that one. It's hard to get right for all cases. A p2p room can have 4 total people in it. So say you plus 3 concurrent guests, none of those guests need any account or "user". Indeed even you don't have to log in after you've created the room if you leave it unlocked. :)
    - 6y ago
  - xyproto 6y ago
    The name was probably too similar to another Norwegian company that is also named Appear.
- solinent 6y ago
  With Jitsi the main thing is the browser, you should try different versions of Firefox & Chrome.
- spsrich2 6y ago
  I've been using Whereby.com. It's clean, simple and 'just works'. No permissions popups or anything like that.
- belval 6y ago
  It's not free but I've had a lot of success with Amazon Chime which handles calls very well and support people "calling-in". Full disclosure: I am doing an internship at Amazon, but my experience predates me working there.
  - rubyfan 6y ago
    Chime doesn’t work on a lot of corporate networks
    - belval 6y ago
      TIL thanks
  - 40four 6y ago
    Due to the god awful state of Microsoft Teams conferencing, we recently started trying Chime at my new job. There are still some hiccups, but I can vouch that the quality of both audio and video is very good on Chime. We have also used GoToMeeting with a good amount of success. Anything but Teams, haha.
- drdeadringer 6y ago
  My laptop is at least that old and Jitsi is fine for me. Linux Mint OS, Firefox browser, both up to date.
  - mushufasa 6y ago
    are you using it on the browser, or are you using the jitsi desktop version (which seems to be distinct and not cross-compatible)? Are there settings you adjusted? Are you just doing one-on-one meetings (that works fine for me too) or group calls of 3+ (which is what I need to do everyday where it immediately becomes unusable)? I'm also using a linux distro based off ubuntu/debian.
    - drdeadringer 6y ago
      > are you using it on the browser, or are you using the jitsi desktop version I am using Jitsi in//on the browser [for me, Firefox]. I don't know if I have a preference as I have only "just started using" the past few months via being given a link I click on whilst I am on my laptop... so unfortunately I cannot speak about Jitsi via Desktop Version at this time. > Are there settings you adjusted? Besides simple sound volume off of my OS//headphones, I use whatever the default settings are. > 1-1 meetings or 3+ group calls? Group calls, each time would be roughly 5-12 people. For other info just for giggles: The laptop I do this on is connected wirelessly to my home wireless network, about 6 feet away from my wireless router; my wireless router may have multiple people using it at a given time since I share. I'm in US-California-Silicon_Valley on Comcast.
      - feanaro 6y ago
        Jitsi Meet had some troubles in Firefox due to some WebRTC implementation differences. It is being worked on and the situation has improved, but I'm not sure whether all outstanding issues have been resolved. You could try Chromium and see if it gets any better.
- easytiger 6y ago
  There is a bug in meet where it suddenly decides to burn CPU like crazy. Can work fine for hours then fail
- tppiotrowski 6y ago
  Are you trying to do one-on-one of many-to-many calls? If you're doing just one-on-one there is very basic webrtc in web browser service[1]. I've also made my own for quickly connecting with people online[2], not sure if it's your use case though... [1] https://peercalls.com/ https://peercalls.com/ [2] https://tedpiotrowski.svbtle.com/moonlite https://tedpiotrowski.svbtle.com/moonlite
  - mushufasa 6y ago
    It's for group calls. Jitsi worked fine one-on-one but as soon as a third person joined it became unusable.
    - freeopinion 6y ago
      Are any of the participants using Firefox? There's a known problem with Firefox's WebRTC and Jitsi wherein even a single Firefox participant can create performance issues for everyone.
      - mushufasa 6y ago
        I was using firefox. That's probably it. Does only Chrome work? Seems to defeat the point of FOSS...
        ernesth 6y ago
        It is due to a bug in firefox (some kind of feature in webrtc not being enabled in Firefox). It however works in FOSS browsers such as chromium. It may be resolved now: the bugzilla entry mentions a patch: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1606823 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1606823
- andoma 6y ago
  https://goteam.video/ https://goteam.video/ (Disclaimer/Plug: I work for the company that built this). It's WebRTC based but should work fine in Chrome, Safari, Firefox and latest Edge (ie the Chrome variant). We've just added optional end-to-end encryption for multiparty sessions based on the recent "Insertable Streams" feature available in Chrome M83+.
- rewgs 6y ago
  Has everyone forgotten about Skype? My D&D group switched from Zoom to Skype and the performance/quality is noticeably better. There's 5 of us and it's great. Free, no time limits, etc.
  - deadbunny 6y ago
    My group (6 of us) did the oposite. We used to use Skype till we had continual problems of people getting infinite "loading" screens, we switched to Zoom the last 3 or 4 games because of it. I have to say the video quality is much better and the DM being able to screen share while we can still see each other is great. Also the "Brady Bunch" view is great, being able to see everyone at once is awesome. I'm not very happy with all of the news trickling out about Zoom but I really do like their product.
    - tkgally 6y ago
      > I'm not very happy with all of the news trickling out about Zoom but I really do like their product. That's my position, too. I teach at a large public university in Japan, where the school year begins in April. At the beginning of March, we were expecting to start classes in person as normal a month later. By around March 20, we had decided to teach most of our classes online; a week later, "most" had become "all." Teachers and students had little to no prior experience with online education, and their level of general digital literacy varied widely. From the plethora of tools available, we had to choose software that everyone could use and that would be reliable and scalable. Despite concerns about security issues, Zoom was chosen as our videoconferencing platform. That seems to have turned out to be a good choice, as it is stable, can handle large groups, and offers features (breakout rooms, video and audio recording, attendance reports, etc.) that are useful for university classes. That fact that it hasn't (yet) been blocked in China was also a factor in choosing it, as we have students stuck overseas who need to take part in classes. Anecdotal reports from colleagues who teach at other universities in Japan suggest that the non-Zoom platforms have not performed as well. Now that teachers and students are used to online classes, I hope we can also try other tools in the future. But considering how well Zoom performed during our hectic ramp-up to online teaching, I give it my grudging support for the time being.
- kyuudou 6y ago
  HighFive seems to be popular where I'm at. I like, it works. I have a couple of minor UI complaints but overall it's fine. I haven't seen it in use with large (say, >20 people) meetings, though.
- thePunisher 6y ago
  My laptop is almost 10 years old an works fine with Jitsi and Linux Mint on Firefox.
- driverdan 6y ago
  My 8 year old Macbook Pro works fine for all video conference services. It uses a lot of CPU and the fans go crazy but it works.
hanniabu 6y ago
> find another solution Have you tried Jitsi?
- einpoklum 6y ago
  It's a bit difficult to understand what exactly that means. There's Jitsi Meet, Jitsi Desktop, there's a browser extension, a server-which-isn't-just-a-server etc. It's a bit confusing.
  - compuguy 6y ago
    I think @hanniabu is referring to Jitsi Meet in this case...
  - nthnclrk 6y ago
    Why is it difficult? Is there not enough context given the conversation is specifically focused on video conference software. One could say the same of Zoom... There's Zoom Meetings Client, Zoom Rooms, a desktop app, mobile app, Outlook Plug-in, Browser extension, etc.
  - ViViDboarder 6y ago
    I think you’re overstating the complexity a bit. When people mention Zoom I don’t fuss over whether it’s desktop, web (do they even offer it?), mobile, or whatever.
    - aendruk 6y ago
      > do they even offer it? Just to answer this—technically yes, but they use dark patterns to dissuade people from learning about it.
- paulgb 6y ago
  I've wanted to like Jitsi, but the quality difference with Zoom is noticeable. Same with Google Meet and anything I've seen that uses WebRTC. They remind me of RealPlayer back in the early 2000s in terms of blockyness. I would love to know about any Zoom competitors, free or paid, with comparable quality.
tmpz22 6y ago
> Zoom is a company I have loved so far Do you love the company, its leadership, its product, or its pricing?
- amrrs 6y ago
  Not OP, I love the company's leadership and the product (not the privacy issue part). It's awesome to see Eric leaving Webex and building a product that seems and sells superior to Webex. It's not that easy to beat yourself at your own game and he's proved. That is one thing I like about Zoom
  - buran77 6y ago
    > not the privacy issue part But that's an integral part of the product. There is a lot of reason for suspicion floating around the company and the product itself, and the long string of security screwups and misdirection confirms every bit of that. What's the point of having even good functionality if it comes attached to such concerns? Most products have a good side but choosing one is always about picking what's the worst problem that you can live with rather than the best feature.
    - neuronic 6y ago
      No, for the majority of people that is a part of the product they do not care about. That's educated tech people at Google, which had to forbid the use of Zoom, and high school teachers alike. Subtle yet severe privacy invasions do not matter to the glaring majority of people because they cannot associate it with direct consequences. If I have been using Zoom and the Chinese government now has 200 hours of my facial and speech data, at first it doesn't impact me. I don't see the impact, I don't feel it aside from some people yelling on HN. The consequences are either subtle and easily dismissed (e.g. ad tech/marketing when Instagram secretly listens to the phone mic and suddenly you see products that were part of the conversation) or severe and too far out to relate it to a Zoom call 23 months ago (e.g. border control when entering China for tourism). If you're not an activist then chances are you do not care about online privacy.
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
I will say Google Meet has gotten much better since the pandemic started, e.g. support for many more participants in its grid view.
- longtom 6y ago
  Is Google really any better? They may simply be better at hiding their surveillance apparatus. We need to decentralize, i.e. destroy large non-decentralized organizations.
  - ilikehurdles 6y ago
    No it is not. I'm planning on switching to jitsi for my personal and non-profit projects, and I guess I'll advocate for it at work. Switching from Zoom to Google/Microsoft/Cisco anything is like switching from Evian to Aquafina.
  - jentist_retol 6y ago
    US citizens have a significant better chance at fighting a warrant. Personally, we've been using Jitsi for video. It's not amazing, but it is free in many senses of the word.
    - longtom 6y ago
      Two comments recommending Jitsi. Suspicious.
      - jentist_retol 6y ago
        If you find a better one that is not absolutely arcane and frustrating to use, let me know. Until then, Jitsi is "good enough", even if it's still pretty rough in certain parts.
        nix23 6y ago
        I love Jitsy for Video, but for schooling i prefer BigBlueButton it's also FOSS, but yes it's really not the same 'product-category': https://bigbluebutton.org/ https://bigbluebutton.org/
Hnrobert42 6y ago
After evaluating a number of solutions, we chose uberconference (no relation to uber). I really like it, especially that the conference is just a phone number.
Jab456 6y ago
I agree with you on this point.

mushufasa 6y ago

I've tried Google Meet, Jitsi, and some other things, but Zoom is the only service that my 6+ year old laptop can handle for more than 5 min without nosediving into 100% CPU usage and freezing up. Does anyone have other suggestions? Either for other services or for troubleshooting Jitsi?

11235813213455 6y ago
agreed that google meet is a CPU killer
gnud 6y ago
You could give Whereby [1] a try. I really liked it when it was named "appear.in" (that's now a completely different company), and used it for a bit, until my work switched to Teams. Whereby is, as far as I can tell, completely owned by a Norwegian registered company. 1: https://whereby.com https://whereby.com
- tlear 6y ago
  I really liked it, then they broke it on Safari. I still use it on Firefox, but it is annoying to switch just for using it
  - odinho 6y ago
    We have used a lot of time making it work on Safari. And we continue to use quite substantial resources on it. Their webrtc implementation is quite new, and not as stable as Chrome and Firefox. And with new code comes new bugs. There is currently a bug with audio, where it'll crash in Safari, -- and we have had some issues reconnects that was more our fault (though Firefox and Chrome is much more forgiving). We have a workaround for the first, and will be doing a fix for the second once we're reasonably sure it won't regress other browsers. Is it any of those issues you talk about? Or is it something else? (I'm not personally familiar with the Safari issues, btw, since I'm a Linux user, but I keep an eye on Firefox and Chromium-based browsers)
    - tlear 6y ago
      Safari does not crash, but audio is not working. I will play with it today and send bug report. Might help you guys out, I really like it otherwise
    - azinman2 6y ago
      If you have a good repro please send to https://bugreport.apple.com https://bugreport.apple.com or contact Apple Developer Support.
- odinho 6y ago
  A Whereby-developer here. It's awesome you recommend us. <3 But we'll also kill your CPU ^_^ You can turn on "mobile mode" in advanced device settings, and it should be a bit better. But we're a bit limited in how CPU-friendly we really can be, living in the browser. Not that we can't improve, there's certainly extra tricks we could try - but not easily without also lowering fps and resolution. I don't think "low resource use" is a big selling-argument for our product. Video can be quite heavy.
  - odinho 6y ago
    Actually, if you are using 4+ rooms, we will in many cases be better than some other webrtc services because we for these bigger rooms use a server in the middle to distribute all the streams. That will result in lower resource use. You only encode and send once, and it is distributed by the server. But if other webrtc kills CPU on 4 or less, we probably won't be much better. This "more than 4 room" is not p2p and end-to-end encrypted, since the server (SFU) needs to read and change some headers. So it is a tradeoff. There's now "insertable streams" which allow you to do encryption on the media client side, but it's a test for now: https://webrtchacks.com/true-end-to-end-encryption-with-webrtc-insertable-streams/ https://webrtchacks.com/true-end-to-end-encryption-with-webr...
  - unicornporn 6y ago
    Nice! Fellow Scandinavian here. Just some feedback. I think the free tier was a little unclear. > Free > Personal use > 1 user > 1 meeting room I have trouble reading this. It's as if I coule only create one room for myself without having anybody to chat with.
    - odinho 6y ago
      Hehe, I see. Yeah copy and marketing is hard. I think we should try to re-do that one. It's hard to get right for all cases. A p2p room can have 4 total people in it. So say you plus 3 concurrent guests, none of those guests need any account or "user". Indeed even you don't have to log in after you've created the room if you leave it unlocked. :)
  - 6y ago
- xyproto 6y ago
  The name was probably too similar to another Norwegian company that is also named Appear.
solinent 6y ago
With Jitsi the main thing is the browser, you should try different versions of Firefox & Chrome.
spsrich2 6y ago
I've been using Whereby.com. It's clean, simple and 'just works'. No permissions popups or anything like that.
belval 6y ago
It's not free but I've had a lot of success with Amazon Chime which handles calls very well and support people "calling-in". Full disclosure: I am doing an internship at Amazon, but my experience predates me working there.
- rubyfan 6y ago
  Chime doesn’t work on a lot of corporate networks
  - belval 6y ago
    TIL thanks
- 40four 6y ago
  Due to the god awful state of Microsoft Teams conferencing, we recently started trying Chime at my new job. There are still some hiccups, but I can vouch that the quality of both audio and video is very good on Chime. We have also used GoToMeeting with a good amount of success. Anything but Teams, haha.
drdeadringer 6y ago
My laptop is at least that old and Jitsi is fine for me. Linux Mint OS, Firefox browser, both up to date.
- mushufasa 6y ago
  are you using it on the browser, or are you using the jitsi desktop version (which seems to be distinct and not cross-compatible)? Are there settings you adjusted? Are you just doing one-on-one meetings (that works fine for me too) or group calls of 3+ (which is what I need to do everyday where it immediately becomes unusable)? I'm also using a linux distro based off ubuntu/debian.
  - drdeadringer 6y ago
    > are you using it on the browser, or are you using the jitsi desktop version I am using Jitsi in//on the browser [for me, Firefox]. I don't know if I have a preference as I have only "just started using" the past few months via being given a link I click on whilst I am on my laptop... so unfortunately I cannot speak about Jitsi via Desktop Version at this time. > Are there settings you adjusted? Besides simple sound volume off of my OS//headphones, I use whatever the default settings are. > 1-1 meetings or 3+ group calls? Group calls, each time would be roughly 5-12 people. For other info just for giggles: The laptop I do this on is connected wirelessly to my home wireless network, about 6 feet away from my wireless router; my wireless router may have multiple people using it at a given time since I share. I'm in US-California-Silicon_Valley on Comcast.
    - feanaro 6y ago
      Jitsi Meet had some troubles in Firefox due to some WebRTC implementation differences. It is being worked on and the situation has improved, but I'm not sure whether all outstanding issues have been resolved. You could try Chromium and see if it gets any better.
easytiger 6y ago
There is a bug in meet where it suddenly decides to burn CPU like crazy. Can work fine for hours then fail
tppiotrowski 6y ago
Are you trying to do one-on-one of many-to-many calls? If you're doing just one-on-one there is very basic webrtc in web browser service[1]. I've also made my own for quickly connecting with people online[2], not sure if it's your use case though... [1] https://peercalls.com/ https://peercalls.com/ [2] https://tedpiotrowski.svbtle.com/moonlite https://tedpiotrowski.svbtle.com/moonlite
- mushufasa 6y ago
  It's for group calls. Jitsi worked fine one-on-one but as soon as a third person joined it became unusable.
  - freeopinion 6y ago
    Are any of the participants using Firefox? There's a known problem with Firefox's WebRTC and Jitsi wherein even a single Firefox participant can create performance issues for everyone.
    - mushufasa 6y ago
      I was using firefox. That's probably it. Does only Chrome work? Seems to defeat the point of FOSS...
      - ernesth 6y ago
        It is due to a bug in firefox (some kind of feature in webrtc not being enabled in Firefox). It however works in FOSS browsers such as chromium. It may be resolved now: the bugzilla entry mentions a patch: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1606823 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1606823
andoma 6y ago
https://goteam.video/ https://goteam.video/ (Disclaimer/Plug: I work for the company that built this). It's WebRTC based but should work fine in Chrome, Safari, Firefox and latest Edge (ie the Chrome variant). We've just added optional end-to-end encryption for multiparty sessions based on the recent "Insertable Streams" feature available in Chrome M83+.
rewgs 6y ago
Has everyone forgotten about Skype? My D&D group switched from Zoom to Skype and the performance/quality is noticeably better. There's 5 of us and it's great. Free, no time limits, etc.
- deadbunny 6y ago
  My group (6 of us) did the oposite. We used to use Skype till we had continual problems of people getting infinite "loading" screens, we switched to Zoom the last 3 or 4 games because of it. I have to say the video quality is much better and the DM being able to screen share while we can still see each other is great. Also the "Brady Bunch" view is great, being able to see everyone at once is awesome. I'm not very happy with all of the news trickling out about Zoom but I really do like their product.
  - tkgally 6y ago
    > I'm not very happy with all of the news trickling out about Zoom but I really do like their product. That's my position, too. I teach at a large public university in Japan, where the school year begins in April. At the beginning of March, we were expecting to start classes in person as normal a month later. By around March 20, we had decided to teach most of our classes online; a week later, "most" had become "all." Teachers and students had little to no prior experience with online education, and their level of general digital literacy varied widely. From the plethora of tools available, we had to choose software that everyone could use and that would be reliable and scalable. Despite concerns about security issues, Zoom was chosen as our videoconferencing platform. That seems to have turned out to be a good choice, as it is stable, can handle large groups, and offers features (breakout rooms, video and audio recording, attendance reports, etc.) that are useful for university classes. That fact that it hasn't (yet) been blocked in China was also a factor in choosing it, as we have students stuck overseas who need to take part in classes. Anecdotal reports from colleagues who teach at other universities in Japan suggest that the non-Zoom platforms have not performed as well. Now that teachers and students are used to online classes, I hope we can also try other tools in the future. But considering how well Zoom performed during our hectic ramp-up to online teaching, I give it my grudging support for the time being.
kyuudou 6y ago
HighFive seems to be popular where I'm at. I like, it works. I have a couple of minor UI complaints but overall it's fine. I haven't seen it in use with large (say, >20 people) meetings, though.
thePunisher 6y ago
My laptop is almost 10 years old an works fine with Jitsi and Linux Mint on Firefox.
driverdan 6y ago
My 8 year old Macbook Pro works fine for all video conference services. It uses a lot of CPU and the fans go crazy but it works.

hanniabu 6y ago

> find another solution Have you tried Jitsi?

einpoklum 6y ago
It's a bit difficult to understand what exactly that means. There's Jitsi Meet, Jitsi Desktop, there's a browser extension, a server-which-isn't-just-a-server etc. It's a bit confusing.
- compuguy 6y ago
  I think @hanniabu is referring to Jitsi Meet in this case...
- nthnclrk 6y ago
  Why is it difficult? Is there not enough context given the conversation is specifically focused on video conference software. One could say the same of Zoom... There's Zoom Meetings Client, Zoom Rooms, a desktop app, mobile app, Outlook Plug-in, Browser extension, etc.
- ViViDboarder 6y ago
  I think you’re overstating the complexity a bit. When people mention Zoom I don’t fuss over whether it’s desktop, web (do they even offer it?), mobile, or whatever.
  - aendruk 6y ago
    > do they even offer it? Just to answer this—technically yes, but they use dark patterns to dissuade people from learning about it.
paulgb 6y ago
I've wanted to like Jitsi, but the quality difference with Zoom is noticeable. Same with Google Meet and anything I've seen that uses WebRTC. They remind me of RealPlayer back in the early 2000s in terms of blockyness. I would love to know about any Zoom competitors, free or paid, with comparable quality.

tmpz22 6y ago

> Zoom is a company I have loved so far Do you love the company, its leadership, its product, or its pricing?

amrrs 6y ago
Not OP, I love the company's leadership and the product (not the privacy issue part). It's awesome to see Eric leaving Webex and building a product that seems and sells superior to Webex. It's not that easy to beat yourself at your own game and he's proved. That is one thing I like about Zoom
- buran77 6y ago
  > not the privacy issue part But that's an integral part of the product. There is a lot of reason for suspicion floating around the company and the product itself, and the long string of security screwups and misdirection confirms every bit of that. What's the point of having even good functionality if it comes attached to such concerns? Most products have a good side but choosing one is always about picking what's the worst problem that you can live with rather than the best feature.
  - neuronic 6y ago
    No, for the majority of people that is a part of the product they do not care about. That's educated tech people at Google, which had to forbid the use of Zoom, and high school teachers alike. Subtle yet severe privacy invasions do not matter to the glaring majority of people because they cannot associate it with direct consequences. If I have been using Zoom and the Chinese government now has 200 hours of my facial and speech data, at first it doesn't impact me. I don't see the impact, I don't feel it aside from some people yelling on HN. The consequences are either subtle and easily dismissed (e.g. ad tech/marketing when Instagram secretly listens to the phone mic and suddenly you see products that were part of the conversation) or severe and too far out to relate it to a Zoom call 23 months ago (e.g. border control when entering China for tourism). If you're not an activist then chances are you do not care about online privacy.

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago

I will say Google Meet has gotten much better since the pandemic started, e.g. support for many more participants in its grid view.

longtom 6y ago
Is Google really any better? They may simply be better at hiding their surveillance apparatus. We need to decentralize, i.e. destroy large non-decentralized organizations.
- ilikehurdles 6y ago
  No it is not. I'm planning on switching to jitsi for my personal and non-profit projects, and I guess I'll advocate for it at work. Switching from Zoom to Google/Microsoft/Cisco anything is like switching from Evian to Aquafina.
- jentist_retol 6y ago
  US citizens have a significant better chance at fighting a warrant. Personally, we've been using Jitsi for video. It's not amazing, but it is free in many senses of the word.
  - longtom 6y ago
    Two comments recommending Jitsi. Suspicious.
    - jentist_retol 6y ago
      If you find a better one that is not absolutely arcane and frustrating to use, let me know. Until then, Jitsi is "good enough", even if it's still pretty rough in certain parts.
      - nix23 6y ago
        I love Jitsy for Video, but for schooling i prefer BigBlueButton it's also FOSS, but yes it's really not the same 'product-category': https://bigbluebutton.org/ https://bigbluebutton.org/

Hnrobert42 6y ago

After evaluating a number of solutions, we chose uberconference (no relation to uber). I really like it, especially that the conference is just a phone number.

Jab456 6y ago

I agree with you on this point.