It seems like everyone has been zooming since COVID-19 stay at home orders began, but Zoom has major security flaws.
Zoombombing, where someone uninvited intrudes and disrupts a meeting with often inappropriate content, has even occurred during funerals that were on Zoom. It’s too easy to randomly guess Zoom meeting access codes or find them on the web.
DDF member Yehuda57 started a campaign to get people to stop using Zoom due to those problems that plague the platform.
Even kids are nervous about Zoom 😉
My 16-year-old just now, with the best how-the-pandemic-will-change-society insight I've heard yet:
"We'll never get off school for snow days anymore, now that they have Zoom."
— Jeff Jacoby (@Jeff_Jacoby) May 5, 2020
Google Meet was previously restricted to paid business users, but Google has now made it free for everyone!
You can use Meet from your web browser, from Gmail, or you can download it for Android here or iOS here.
You can even setup an event in Google Calendar with Google Meet and then everyone can join the video meeting right from their calendar alert:
I tried Google Meet out briefly on the web browser and on Android and it seems excellent!
- You need to login to a Google account to use it, so it’s much more secure than Zoom.
- You can invite people to the meeting, or you can share a secure link and admit them into the meeting.
- Free meetings can host up to 100 people and will have no time limit through 9/30. After that there will be a 1 hour time limit.
- It works great from modern web browsers with no plugins needed.
- Meeting codes are complex and can’t be guessed.
- Streaming quality will work better, even with low bandwidth.
- Meet video meetings are encrypted in transit.
- Google is promising not to use Meet data for advertising.
Will you ditch Zoom for Google Meet?
Can you have the option to call in from a phone?
Not that I see. But it’s more secure this way…
I do have an option to call in from a regular phone, but that was last week with a gsuite account
GSuite Meet has more features.
yes you can
Yes, you can call in to a Google Meet but it also has the feature that Zoom has where you can be on the Meet on a PC for video but using the phone for Audio and your voice is linked up to your video presence. It works a little differently than Zoom but with the same result. I just used that feature today.
For sure! Zooms customer support is also from the 1940s
Well said
Hasn’t this been free for over a week now?
They’ve been rolling it out.
Should be working for everyone as of today.
Do participants need to login to Google to join?
Yes.
Zoom also requires you to login to your account.
No, only to host
Zoom does not require the invited person have any account to join a zoom meeting.
When scheduling a meeting (on any paid account) there is an option that only allows attendees with a Zoom account to join.
Why are you comparing features on a paid account to a free service?
No they dont, if you’re just joining a meeting.
why is it more secure? IT takes approx .30 seconds to set up a gmail account.
Something that requires a login is by definition more secure than something that doesn’t.
There is an option in Zoom to add a password, create a waiting room and to only allow entry to those that are registered and signed in. How is that any less secure than Google meet?
It’s Now the default option. You have to physically remove your password if you don’t want it to.
you can’t remove the password on a free account
That’s the part I’m missing. Zoom was stupid for not requiring by default, but you can easily require the attendees to have zoom accounts to sign in.
You can set a password which can’t be guessed.
I mean, ye google is probably more user friendly. But let’s not make like zoom is (now) terribly insecure
Yeah, for 30 seconds.
Have you read the news lately?
I tried Meets last night, crashed a lot on iOS, missing lots of Zoom features, for now I’m still with Zoom
I’m pretty sure you can’t screen share on Meet. You also can’t go live to Facebook on Meet.
You can screen share.
I would ditch zoom in a moment: especially as it is somewhat associated with the Chinese government (regardless of what they want you to believe).
Totally agreed, Zoom might be owned by a Chinese American and claims to be based in the US, but their software is developed majority in China. The US side basically just handles sales and service. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/26/zoom-key-profit-driver-ahead-of-ipo-engineers-in-china.html
Hell Yes! I will ditch zoom the Chinese brand, well the Chinese government don’t share their Covid data
Since when do we believe Google when the promise something?
You can call in with google meet
Is it so hard to add a feature where only invited people can join a meeting? Especially for Meet that it’s based on Google login. Seems like it should be easy for them to add.
All the schools are using zoom they won’t just switch. But for private meeting this can be a good alternative. Also zoom has a lot of other features meet doesnt have like phone calls, seperate rooms and other small things.
My biggest issue with Google Meet is that there is no way for the host to mute all participants without doing it to each one individually. Even once you’ve done that, the participants can unmute themselves. There is no setting that only allows the host to unmute.
You can’t have grid view to see everyone at once! This make it useless for me. they better be changing this.
Yea Rebbe! Hate to say, But zoom is better – especially for school, cuz on meet it’s not really admin friendly. Meaning that the host cant really control their students (ie Mute, video, chat, no personal meeting ID – regenarates new one each time…) So as of now, zoom is much better… Also, for the oilam that doesnt have access to computers, or internet, etc… you cant call in to google meet… Basically no features on google meet that should make it better than zoom, excpet for that its security is “better” (i assume you say this cuz it regenarates a new pwd each time) and now that its free to e/o, why is it hard to hack into it? everyone who is hacking on a computer has a google account, and if not, its not so hard to to make one… #stickwithzoom
Add the extension grid view so that you can see everyone on the meeting Brady Bunch style
Ok fine
Virtually all the Zoom security issues have been alleviated that there’s no better security now on Meet than on Zoom.
Zoom’s claim to fame why it suddenly became the go-to video conference system everyone suddenly adapted is because of its much better ease-of-use.
Any reason to ditch Zoom, which now has widespread adaption and familiarity, for a service few use or are signed up for?
Agree with this 100%
I’ll note though that another reason zoom’s popularity zoomed off the charts is because they jumped in when the Coronashow just started. For instance, immediately offering free unlimited length meetings to schools (a very minor perk) they got lots of free advertising
Also, you can also add a calendar notification for zoom
@anat its much easier on zoom though, is the point… its right there…
@Moe Maskim
Having used the paid version (G Suite Enterprise), I’ll add a few points.
The paid version doesn’t require participants to login, but they still need to to be granted entry.
There is dial in from all over the world in the paid version. There is also streaming.
The funny thing is that a G Suite enterprise account for a domain costs less per account than Zoom paid version.
Another cool feature is the ability to call a US or Canadian landline from inside the meeting when you are hosting.
The biggest drawback I’ve felt, is the lack of good gallery view in the app (not in the browser).
Correction- not even G Suite enterprise, even G Suite basic
With Zoom only the host needs a subscription. G Suite you need to pay for every user.
To have the full features of Google meet, only the host needs G suite
meet.jit.si (jitsi.org) is a free and open source video conferencing app. Highly recommended!
Been using Meet ever since I joined Google late last year. Very excited that it’s been rolling out for everyone. Big improvement over Zoom. Many new features will be coming too. Main reason I like it better is security and privacy
Starting a thread n DDF is considered “starting a campaign”? Wow, that’s a lot of activists you have hanging around here.
Been using Meet at work for years, WAY better than zoom no comparison.
Our school is using it. Even though it says it’s free and we submitted all the necessary documents, they say we don’t qualify and they are not giving me a reason. I am trying to reach out to them, but after the trial ended, we are paying full price.
Can you record on this?
Zoom gali gali gali Zoooooooom! Sticking with the champion of telework!
Zoom updated their security, it’s not better than Google and Microsoft teams
This is just google trying to take everyone else’s money. Zoom made it free right away.
From my experience with Meet, it also doesn’t seem to allow private messages between participants which is something that I’ve had fun using on Zoom. I actually needed it today on a Meet and couldn’t see the option. Of course, like many issues/features discussed here, it could be dependent on a) the type of account running the Meet and b) options that are configured at the time of the creation of the Meet.
Is Google Meet HIPA compliant?
Google is too late. Everyone iz zooming.
Zoom has whiteboard sharing which I am not seeing on Google!
Does it feature Co-hosts?
Google meet can share a screen, a window or a Google tab. There is an extension called ziteboard which you can use as a whiteboard. There is no way though for students to annotate.
VERY IMPORTANT this is great news if you have a loved one in the hospital google meet has no time limit it can go for weeks you can put in a tablet in the hospital to stay connected with your family members. I know from personal experience how life saving this can be
Just tried to sign up, but:
Thank you for your interest.
We’ll let you know as soon as Google Meet is available for free.
Sign up for a Google Account while you wait.
For security reasons, you’ll need a Google Account to use Google Meet.
The display on meet, is not as clear as zoom.
used it last night and was really easy and clear
The bashing on Zoom is old news, they made a security release, and if you put a password on your meeting, which you should do for any meeting service, it’s not an issue.
As a teacher who has been running remote classes, I find that Zoom is worlds better than Meet. Any security issues are resolved by using a password, and there is no default equality between the teacher and student. A teacher can share the screen, and the image of students remains on the screen, whereas in Meet, you need to float to a separate window. Meet doesn’t allow sharing applications, or giving students mouse and keyboard control. The best thing about Zoom is that everything is customizable within one app, as opposed to Google which needs another browser extension for anything you do. Ending a meeting in Zoom is much more effective, as the teacher can just shut the whole thing down, whereas in Meet, parents are wondering why kids are still talking when class is over. Zoom allows you to use a green screen, or to disable the option. Pretty much every Zoom feature is customizable. Zoom allows breakout rooms, then the host can force all the students back to class. Google Meet also allows everyone to share screen and turn on captions, allowing all sorts of obnoxious behavior. Occasionally, a student can’t get Zoom to run, and we use Meet. I have colleague who uses meet for an end of day first grade class and I watch my daughter in his class. It’s a disaster, I feel so bad for him.
Meet when i use was alot better, but they lost there opportunity, if they came out free a week maybe two weeks after zoom was put free out there, then they would have got some of the share, but now everyone already has zooms, and ya i know zoom has got its security issues and we fixed that to an extent, and besides how many people are willing to change over to a new service when everyone already has downloaded and explored zoom. Sorry google you do have a superior product but that opportunity has gone. Especially if people are already slowly going back to work.