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.
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?
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.
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.
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-webr...
Hey! I've been using Whereby at work for a while and it's great.
However, I should mention that it's not possible to join calls through the mobile app (as far as I can tell), and the web app on mobile wouldn't capture my Bluetooth headset's audio properly somehow.
Again, thanks for the great work. Just thought I'd let you know :)
Thanks! It is very valuable with feedback like this, even if in this case we're painfully aware of it. :)
I was working on fixing up that when COVID-19 hit. Now we're trying to stamp out more obscure audio+video bugs (like bluetooth, which can be unreliable). We're in process of hiring a few more people so we can hopefully put someone on caring more for the non-logged in mobile app experience.
You do get a join button once you've logged in. But I must confess it is not a good experience by default. It used to be on the top of the priority list, but then scaling and any video/audio issues jumped to the top.
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)
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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+.
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.
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.
> 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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
Zoom is a US company founded by an immigrant from China with 700 employees in China where the software and product development teams are. All 700 of those employees can be leaned on to break security generally or to break it for one specific person or meeting, even if we don’t believe there management of the Chinese or American parts of the firm won’t just do what the CPC ask them to do.
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.
Absolutely, don't be ridiculous. Google is not and will never be complicit to Chinese censorship in America.
This is classic whataboutism and we don't benefit from such hyperbole.
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.
Jitsi is great! If they can figure out a good webinar solution it could be an absolute killer. As it stands, it's (in my opinion) really just useful for small scale interactive meetings at this point, not 100+ participant events.
It's really great as a face-to-face solution though, where Zoom and many others are actually kind of overkill.
I should've made it clear when I say "events" I mean more webinar style events. 100+ participant meetings where everyone is an equal participant isn't useful, but that sort of thing isn't uncommon if you're holding all hands calls or annual shareholder meetings etc.
Well, no – not if you still need audience participation with video and/or audio. Things like annual/quarterly meetings and such where people have a right to speak etc. It's really not that different from a typical video conference, just that the moderator has controls to mute/unmute people and participants can't unmute themselves. Polling/voting/chat features I reckon are secondary I reckon.
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.
If you have your own jitsy server, you can define the max quality up to 1080p i think, the free jitsy service/server has probably really low 'max' video quality.
BigBlueButton is also interesting, but it's more like a Schooling-tool...but also without a client (aka just need a browser)
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.
>Do you love the company, its leadership, its product, or its pricing?
you didn't ask me, but imo they haven't existed long enough to garnish love for their company and leadership.
They had a product and a price point at a time with huge & abnormal sudden demand. I think this alone was enough to make them successful in the short term.
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
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.
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.
I think people care when they are properly informed, in a setting where they are ready to hear such information. The primary reason they seem not to care is because "everyone is using X, so I guess it can't be that bad" and an information/concern overload.
We are constantly bombarded with new concerns and this particular topic requires expert opinion to truly know which software you can trust. Then there is the problem of choosing which expert to trust. And you still have to have time left simply to live your life. It's just not an easy thing to let yourself be concerned with this.
In my personal experience, I've yet to meet a person that turned out not to care once I've taken the time to discuss this with them one on one.
However, without some sort of reversal, this is enough for me to deal with the mess of doing that.