6 ms·

how is it better than google meet? the few times I used zoom there always was problems with audio, camera or people struggled to join

Apocryphon 4y ago
Google Meet? Which one?
ClassyJacket 4y ago
Do you mean Google Meet, or Google Meet (Original), which are two seperate apps? Or were you you referring to Duo, which is also called Google Meet now. Or Hangouts, the other Google video chat app which also exists for some reason? Or Google Hangouts Meet, which also existed? Or Google Allo? It's better than Google Meet because Zoom won't shut itself down in 6 months, replace Zoom with a different app with a different name, change the name, change the name again, then shut that down and repeat the cycle 6 months later.
- iainmerrick 4y ago
  Most people don’t actually care about or even notice that confusion. You go to meet.google.com and it works without too much hassle.
  - cerved 4y ago
    not on Firefox
  - lultimouomo 4y ago
    This is the one redeeming quality of Meet, and it's worth a lot. I can click on a link that was sent to me and all the essential videoconferencing stuff will just work in my browser. Also in Firefox, regardless of what sibling says (I use it regularly on Linux and macOS). This is a technical feat that somehiw still escapes most of the other videoconferencing platforms (except maybe Zoom, but then they try to hide it as much as possible).
    - geysersam 4y ago
      My impression is that zoom has more features. Breakout rooms, predefined set of meeting hosts etc. But having to install the app on the computer is a pain. "I'm going to join this Zoom meeting starting now." "Nope, you have to update the app first." Is not fun.
      - kevincox 4y ago
        Meet has had breakout rooms for a year or two. Predefined hosts is a place that is lacking. In general Meet started as a "everyone is mostly trusted" tool which is way better for office meetings so their host controls are behind (but slowly being added). Zoom is by default "only the host is trusted" which is very annoying in my day-to-day use. (For example you can't have a weekly meeting because the "organizer" is on vacation and can't start it. You can't screenshare because the host needs to approve, you can't join before the host... Most of these can be changed by default in your settings but I'd course most people in my company haven't done this so we run into problems at least weekly and need to scramble to send around a new link and hope that we manage to get everyone into the same call. But that being said I think Zoom is still the better option for "untrusted" setups like seminars, presentations or other complex or large events. Meet is far better UX for meetings.
    - smallerfish 4y ago
      > This is the one redeeming quality of Meet What do you have against Meet? It's a better solution than Zoom. It doesn't have built in whiteboarding, granted, but for that you can use an online whiteboarding tool.
      - surajrmal 4y ago
        Google meet has jamboard integration for whiteboarding.
  - rvba 4y ago
    > Most people don’t actually care about or even notice that confusion. You are very, very wrong: 1) Old people get very confused even when the interface changes. 2) The changes are irritating even if you know Google products 3) Change for the sake of change (someone at Google wants to get promoted) is just a waste of time, especially as the products are half baked. Maybe you are very young and your time is worthless, but most people want products that just work, with a non confusing interface. Change for the sake of change is something that busy-bodies do to prove that they are useful 4) Google has killed its own products multiple times, so at some point the stuff just stops working. Why bother using a product that will not work? Seriously, it has been few years that everyone knows that Google does its business wrong: those on top should be removed, since it is a lot of money lost. In both of marketshare lost and lots of programmers reinventing the wheel multiple times to offer a half baked product. Every few days I see people who cannot use Microsoft TEAMS (which has a poor interface) and I can easily see that if they used Google products, those constant unnecessary changes would make their lives miserable and make them less productive. Maybe reason why Google products are a joke in corporate environment. I dont really use Zoom, used it mostly to see how it works - and from technology perspective it can be full of holes, but from UI perspective it is much better than the competition. Also probably wont be shut down in 3 months like Google Meet Duo Allo v5.
    - throwawaypcking 4y ago
      > Old people get very confused even when the interface changes. That's a very ageist and ignorant comment. There are plenty of Tik Tok videos of young people getting confused over very simple things as well. Sometimes age can be related but being "old" isn't a sentence to being confused by UI/UX changes.
imron 4y ago
> how is it better than google meet? Doesn’t require a Google account to login.
- WhyNotHugo 4y ago
  You can join Meet calls without a Google Account. Zoom also requires an account to log in.
  - imron 4y ago
    Zoom doesn’t require an account. All you need is the meeting number and password to join a call. And one of the recent Google meet offerings (not sure exactly which one but it was about a year ago) required an account before I could connect to the call. Perhaps it’s different now.
    - happymellon 4y ago
      With Zoom it's optional, but the meeting creator can specify that it's mandatory so that you don't get drive-by bots.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Meet is annoying because I have to remember to sign out or open them in a private window if I don't want to leak details associated with the current gmail account logged in.
azangru 4y ago
Does Google Meet have tools to draw/annotate during screen share?
macNchz 4y ago
I find the Zoom interface UX to be terrible, but keep coming back because it’s way better in ways that matter once you’re used to that. I’ve found that the screenshare quality in Zoom is rather strikingly better than in Meet, to the point that sharing a large screen with an editor full of text is frequently unreadable on Meet but perfectly crisp in Zoom. Also, Zoom does some sort of background noise cancellation that is really impressive. I don’t know if other apps don’t do it, or do it worse, but it’s noticeable on calls (I use both Zoom and Meet daily). I was curious so I tested it from a coworking space recently: recording my headset mic in the open room I could hear voices, an espresso machine and some distant music pretty clearly. Joining a Zoom and doing the same and my background audio was genuinely silent.
- zainhoda 4y ago
  Also the Zoom client has much better touch-ups and lighting controls. When I use Zoom now, I don’t need to use my studio lights but when I do Google Meet or any other web-based one, half my face is in the shadow and there’s no software way to fix it.
joshgachnang 4y ago
In every case I get worse audio and video through Meet than Zoom, and more stuttering. And similar issues with audio and camera, especially if people have more than one.
seanhunter 4y ago
For one, Meet has consistently the worst picture and audio quality at least in my experience. I daily have about 4 or 5 zoom meetings and 1 or 2 meet meetings per week so it's not a small sample. On a day where I'm pumping out zoom meetings in perfect quality, Meet will be degrading the video to the point where I can scarcely recognize people and having audio sync problems. In the last couple of years I seldom have had "meet" meetings where at least one participant doesn't lose sync, lose audio or just get kicked randomly, where these occurrances are (anecdotally, in my experience) much less frequent for zoom. It gets particularly bad when you get above a certain number of participants. I don't recall meet being this bad a few years ago (I used to be at a company that used it for all internal meetings) so I don't know whether some infrastructure changes have occurred to make it so.
yibg 4y ago
I can actually read the code when someone shares screen and scrolls. With google meet (whichever version), when sharing small dense font, things get mighty blurry when scrolling is happening. At least for me.

Apocryphon 4y ago

Google Meet? Which one?

ClassyJacket 4y ago

Do you mean Google Meet, or Google Meet (Original), which are two seperate apps? Or were you you referring to Duo, which is also called Google Meet now. Or Hangouts, the other Google video chat app which also exists for some reason? Or Google Hangouts Meet, which also existed? Or Google Allo? It's better than Google Meet because Zoom won't shut itself down in 6 months, replace Zoom with a different app with a different name, change the name, change the name again, then shut that down and repeat the cycle 6 months later.

iainmerrick 4y ago
Most people don’t actually care about or even notice that confusion. You go to meet.google.com and it works without too much hassle.
- cerved 4y ago
  not on Firefox
- lultimouomo 4y ago
  This is the one redeeming quality of Meet, and it's worth a lot. I can click on a link that was sent to me and all the essential videoconferencing stuff will just work in my browser. Also in Firefox, regardless of what sibling says (I use it regularly on Linux and macOS). This is a technical feat that somehiw still escapes most of the other videoconferencing platforms (except maybe Zoom, but then they try to hide it as much as possible).
  - geysersam 4y ago
    My impression is that zoom has more features. Breakout rooms, predefined set of meeting hosts etc. But having to install the app on the computer is a pain. "I'm going to join this Zoom meeting starting now." "Nope, you have to update the app first." Is not fun.
    - kevincox 4y ago
      Meet has had breakout rooms for a year or two. Predefined hosts is a place that is lacking. In general Meet started as a "everyone is mostly trusted" tool which is way better for office meetings so their host controls are behind (but slowly being added). Zoom is by default "only the host is trusted" which is very annoying in my day-to-day use. (For example you can't have a weekly meeting because the "organizer" is on vacation and can't start it. You can't screenshare because the host needs to approve, you can't join before the host... Most of these can be changed by default in your settings but I'd course most people in my company haven't done this so we run into problems at least weekly and need to scramble to send around a new link and hope that we manage to get everyone into the same call. But that being said I think Zoom is still the better option for "untrusted" setups like seminars, presentations or other complex or large events. Meet is far better UX for meetings.
  - smallerfish 4y ago
    > This is the one redeeming quality of Meet What do you have against Meet? It's a better solution than Zoom. It doesn't have built in whiteboarding, granted, but for that you can use an online whiteboarding tool.
    - surajrmal 4y ago
      Google meet has jamboard integration for whiteboarding.
- rvba 4y ago
  > Most people don’t actually care about or even notice that confusion. You are very, very wrong: 1) Old people get very confused even when the interface changes. 2) The changes are irritating even if you know Google products 3) Change for the sake of change (someone at Google wants to get promoted) is just a waste of time, especially as the products are half baked. Maybe you are very young and your time is worthless, but most people want products that just work, with a non confusing interface. Change for the sake of change is something that busy-bodies do to prove that they are useful 4) Google has killed its own products multiple times, so at some point the stuff just stops working. Why bother using a product that will not work? Seriously, it has been few years that everyone knows that Google does its business wrong: those on top should be removed, since it is a lot of money lost. In both of marketshare lost and lots of programmers reinventing the wheel multiple times to offer a half baked product. Every few days I see people who cannot use Microsoft TEAMS (which has a poor interface) and I can easily see that if they used Google products, those constant unnecessary changes would make their lives miserable and make them less productive. Maybe reason why Google products are a joke in corporate environment. I dont really use Zoom, used it mostly to see how it works - and from technology perspective it can be full of holes, but from UI perspective it is much better than the competition. Also probably wont be shut down in 3 months like Google Meet Duo Allo v5.
  - throwawaypcking 4y ago
    > Old people get very confused even when the interface changes. That's a very ageist and ignorant comment. There are plenty of Tik Tok videos of young people getting confused over very simple things as well. Sometimes age can be related but being "old" isn't a sentence to being confused by UI/UX changes.

imron 4y ago

> how is it better than google meet? Doesn’t require a Google account to login.

WhyNotHugo 4y ago
You can join Meet calls without a Google Account. Zoom also requires an account to log in.
- imron 4y ago
  Zoom doesn’t require an account. All you need is the meeting number and password to join a call. And one of the recent Google meet offerings (not sure exactly which one but it was about a year ago) required an account before I could connect to the call. Perhaps it’s different now.
  - happymellon 4y ago
    With Zoom it's optional, but the meeting creator can specify that it's mandatory so that you don't get drive-by bots.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Meet is annoying because I have to remember to sign out or open them in a private window if I don't want to leak details associated with the current gmail account logged in.

azangru 4y ago

Does Google Meet have tools to draw/annotate during screen share?

macNchz 4y ago

I find the Zoom interface UX to be terrible, but keep coming back because it’s way better in ways that matter once you’re used to that. I’ve found that the screenshare quality in Zoom is rather strikingly better than in Meet, to the point that sharing a large screen with an editor full of text is frequently unreadable on Meet but perfectly crisp in Zoom. Also, Zoom does some sort of background noise cancellation that is really impressive. I don’t know if other apps don’t do it, or do it worse, but it’s noticeable on calls (I use both Zoom and Meet daily). I was curious so I tested it from a coworking space recently: recording my headset mic in the open room I could hear voices, an espresso machine and some distant music pretty clearly. Joining a Zoom and doing the same and my background audio was genuinely silent.

zainhoda 4y ago
Also the Zoom client has much better touch-ups and lighting controls. When I use Zoom now, I don’t need to use my studio lights but when I do Google Meet or any other web-based one, half my face is in the shadow and there’s no software way to fix it.

joshgachnang 4y ago

In every case I get worse audio and video through Meet than Zoom, and more stuttering. And similar issues with audio and camera, especially if people have more than one.

seanhunter 4y ago

For one, Meet has consistently the worst picture and audio quality at least in my experience. I daily have about 4 or 5 zoom meetings and 1 or 2 meet meetings per week so it's not a small sample. On a day where I'm pumping out zoom meetings in perfect quality, Meet will be degrading the video to the point where I can scarcely recognize people and having audio sync problems. In the last couple of years I seldom have had "meet" meetings where at least one participant doesn't lose sync, lose audio or just get kicked randomly, where these occurrances are (anecdotally, in my experience) much less frequent for zoom. It gets particularly bad when you get above a certain number of participants. I don't recall meet being this bad a few years ago (I used to be at a company that used it for all internal meetings) so I don't know whether some infrastructure changes have occurred to make it so.

yibg 4y ago

I can actually read the code when someone shares screen and scrolls. With google meet (whichever version), when sharing small dense font, things get mighty blurry when scrolling is happening. At least for me.