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Thankfully nothing like this is in Jitsi Meet’s TOS: https://jitsi.org/meet-jit-si-terms-of-service/ https://jitsi.org/meet-jit-si-terms-of-service/ It never c

• tradevapp 3y ago
  I use Zoom for work and never got an email explaining that suddenly they can use call recordings to train some AI models and sell this to 3rd parties.
• arielcostas 3y ago
  Actually, they only affect their hosted meet.jit.si service, right? Not if you self-host Jitsi on your own server (which you should if you're a medium-large company, for data protection and all that)
  • lucb1e 3y ago
    Of course. If you run it yourself, you're free to train your neural nets on your users, if that's something you want to do For restrictions on what you can do with the code, you'll need to check the code's license, not the hosted-service's terms of use
• arun-mani-j 3y ago
  +1 for Jitsi. They are awesome, lightweight, and just work with the least hassle. Pretty bad that many nontechnical users are not aware of it compared to Google Meet or Teams.
  • chii 3y ago
    This is just a marketing problem aint it? Unfortunately, one big marketing resource is also owned by said competitor...opps. So where are those antitrust laws again?
  • Knee_Pain 3y ago
    lightweight? they are literally the only video chatting service I use that makes my laptop fans spin up.
    • beebeepka 3y ago
      I am yet to find a modern video chat that isn't draining the battery of any laptop. From old Xeons, to fairly recent Ryzen and even M1/2 Macs. It's a bit puzzling, actually. I don't think Skype and TeamSpeak had the same effect on computers back in the day. Just how much local processing are they doing these days? It's crazy
      • vorticalbox 3y ago
        It's most likely due to the fact they are all electron apps rather than they are doing "something".
        • Sunspark 3y ago
          Hardware decoding is also an issue.. as in, not being used. Old webcams used to do h.264 encoding in hardware. Encoding has since now moved to the CPU which may or may not be fine.. the next issue becomes the codec chosen.. most stuff all has h.264 decoding in hardware.. but it's not being used anymore.. instead they're trying to use vp09 or h.265 or av1 which in many cases requires CPU-based software encoding and decoding.. so the fans rev up like turbines. I feel certain the reason this is happening is because some middle-manager terrorist in a boardroom said "use this codec it won't require as much network data usage! value for the shareholder!" without asking first whether hardware encoding is beneficial even if there's a bit more network traffic with the older codecs. Really burns me up. I do not want to use software encoding/decoding if I have hardware support.
          • hot_gril 3y ago
            I think Google Meet uses VP9, which is really annoying.
          • 3y ago
  • catlover76 3y ago
    A lot of us technical users have never heard of it either lol
  • wkat4242 3y ago
    It's also much more responsive than teams. They seem to optimize frame rate over resolution and teams seems to do the opposite. Having used both I find the framerate more important as it's much easier to interpret quick facial expressions. But teams looks glossier which makes it easier to sell I guess.
    • justinsaccount 3y ago
      For faces that might be true. I've had issues with different tools when sharing a full desktop session on a 4k monitor.
    • Tokumei-no-hito 3y ago
      Have you experienced anything like this other commenter mentioned? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37022878 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37022878
      • wkat4242 3y ago
        Nope it works great for me, we always use it with the ham radio club and it performs admirably.
• boredumb 3y ago
  I started using matrix internally (with element as a client) which uses jitsi under the hood for video/voice chat. Quality is amazing.
  • xbruteforce 3y ago
    We've been using self-hosted matrix for the past 3 years with our jitsi instance and I tend to agree with you. It's reliable and privacy preserving.
  • mrd3v0 3y ago
    Element Call is going to be pretty great once it is production-ready and has E2EE enabled by default (a branch of it already has it on.)
  • wkat4242 3y ago
    Not anymore actually. The jitsi integration was just a temporary thing but 1:1 video chat already works natively.
• ebiester 3y ago
  How does Jitsi handle 500-person+ conference calls these days? This is the killer zoom feature - it looks like Jitsi can handle up to 500 now. https://jaas.8x8.vc/#/comparison https://jaas.8x8.vc/#/comparison . That's personally not enough for many remote companies. So if we're going to have to have Zoom on our machines anyway (to handle an all-company meeting), why not just use it for the rest?
  • jabradoodle 3y ago
    Specifically because of the discussed TOS.
  • donalhunt 3y ago
    Are 500-person conference calls actually productive? Surely the number of speakers in any such meeting will be a small percentage of listeners?
    • CorpOverreach 3y ago
      It's useful. It's more of a large-scale broadcast situation. Think of large corporate town halls, town council meetings, etc.
      • Gasp0de 3y ago
        You can just have a conference call with the 5-10 speakers and use broadcasting software to stream it to the audience, why do they need to be in the conference?
        • pclmulqdq 3y ago
          Live Q&A is a nice feature.
          • dotnet00 3y ago
            Conference for the speakers + unlisted livestream on YouTube could handle that, using chat for Q&A.
• tikkun 3y ago
  Also HN user jeltz below mentioned: > I have tried most of them: Google Meet, Teams, Slack, Discord, Skype, Jitsi and so far I liked Jitsi the most and Skype the least.
  • realusername 3y ago
    Skype became really really terrible, it looks like it's been unmaintained during the past 10 years, I'd rate its usability worse than most open-source software. The sound quality is also awful, it feels like I'm calling a landline.
    • gumby 3y ago
      Where do you live? In the US at least, landline (AKA POTS) is still the gold standard for audio quality.
      • tikkun 3y ago
        Not parent commenter, though facetime audio or telegram audio is my preferred for audio quality.
      • realusername 3y ago
        I live in France, landline had a distinct background white noise to it that somehow Skype managed to imitate. Switching to any other software feels like you're upgrading to HD audio.
        • MandieD 3y ago
          It’s called “comfort noise,” and was an option in Lync/Skype for Business. A lot of users being switched from desk phones, especially older ones who still primarily used landlines at home, found themselves wondering if their conversation partner was still on the line without it.
      • NavinF 3y ago
        In the US I don't know a single person that has access to POTS. Discord (with paid nitro) is the gold standard for quality and latency, followed by all the free VoIP apps
• eddieroger 3y ago
  Worst is relative. Zoom has the lower barrier to entry for normal users (who far outnumber us nerdy type) than any other app in it's class. Worst for privacy, best for usability, many argue.
  • api 3y ago
    Worst for privacy best for usability is the norm. Most B2C stuff is almost predatory. The only exceptions are at the high (cost) end of the market, and Apple to some extent. If you aren’t paying in either time (DIY) or money, you are probably being exploited.
    • acidburnNSA 3y ago
      Apple is also the high cost end of the market.
• PeterisP 3y ago
  For various reasons I have a bunch of different groups where I use different videocall software for regular meetings - Zoom, Jitsi, Teams, Skype, Google Meet and Webex. Out of all those, Jitsi is the only one where I can't rely on the core functionality - video calls and screensharing for small meetings (5-6 people); I have had multiple cases when we've had to switch to something else because the video/audio quality simply wasn't sufficient, but a different tool worked just fine for the same people/computers/network. Like, I fully understand the benefits of having a solution that's self-hosted and controlled, so we do keep using self-hosted Jitsi in some cases for all these reasons, but for whatever reason the core functionality performs significantly worse than the competitors. Like, I hate MS Teams due to all kinds of flaws it has, but when I am on a Teams meeting with many others, at least I don't have to worry if they will be able to hear me and see the data I'm showing.
  • nicoco 3y ago
    Bigger servers?
    • bob-09 3y ago
      Not sure there would be a decent enough return on investment, especially if the other tools they regularly use provide more reliable service at no additional cost.
    • smarx007 3y ago
      Won't help. I've had multiple callers encounter trouble with what I guess WebRTC traffic due to browser extensions, "anti" virus software, VPN policies etc. Zoom etc. works fine. They usually fixed it by switching to a personal phone instead of a work laptop but in general, the situation is not tenable.
• jonas21 3y ago
  Section 4 of the Jitsi Meet ToS grants them similar rights. It's just with mushier language. > You give 8×8 (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works..., communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display, and distribute such content solely for the limited purpose of operating and enabling the Service to work as intended for You and for no other purposes. IANAL, but it seems like that would include training on your data as long as the model was used as part of their service. Everyone who operates a video conferencing service will have some sort of clause like this in their ToS. Zoom is being more explicit, which is generally a good thing. If Jitsi wanted to be equally explicit, they could add something clarifying that this does not include training AI models.
  • rapnie 3y ago
    Self-hosting Jitsi is the better option. Or BigBlueButton, and there are more self-hosted open-source Zoom alternatives.
    • samspenc 3y ago
      Do you happen to know of others by any chance. For self-hosted video call solutions, looks like Jitsi and BigBlueButton (BBB) are the only decent options out there.
      • jech 3y ago
        > Do you happen to know of others by any chance. There's Galene, <https://galene.org https://galene.org>. It's easy to deploy, uses minimal server resources, and the server is pretty solid. The client interface is still a little awkward, though. (Full disclosure, I'm the main author.)
      • jfkimmes 3y ago
        There's now also https://github.com/vector-im/element-call https://github.com/vector-im/element-call. They have SFU support as of recently, so it should scale similarly to Jitsi et al.
      • 3y ago
• j45 3y ago
  Jitsi is at least reasonably self hostable, minus the inability to have users to login without some effort.
• rst 3y ago
  What I take to be the TOS for Google Meet (it's a little hard to tell!) makes no specific reference to AI, but does mention use of customer data for "developing new technologies and services" more generally. https://policies.google.com/terms#toc-permission https://policies.google.com/terms#toc-permission
• mycall 3y ago
  Not yet.
• Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
  Zoom noise canceling is really good, it can filter my children screaming in the background. Very useful for WFH people
• wkat4242 3y ago
  Also jitsi can easily be self hosted which means no information will leak altogether. I've refused to install zoom since they installed a Mac backdoor and refused to remove it until Apple took a stand and marked them as malware until they removed it. And that was far from their only skullduggery.
• mbesto 3y ago
  > how companies choose the worst software! A local accounting firm with 4 employees just wants their conferencing software to work - Zoom does that better than anyone else. There is nothing "worst" about that. In never ceases to amaze me that this community is so out of touch with the general populace.