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Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful

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Re: Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful

#71

Post by Encosia »

dantillberg wrote: post #53
Encosia wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using Trillian Pro for this for many years, and it's worth every penny. My history is always in sync between my Windows, OSX, and iOS devices, and Trillian's desktop interface is so much better than Gmail's chat interface.

Do you use Trillian in conjunction with the google-native clients? I seem to recall trying Trillian -- years ago, though -- and finding that it had the same issues as Pidgin and Adium, losing messages whenever you were active in another client.

I have seen weirdness from time to time, but mostly no. I just asked someone to send me a test message while the Gmail window was focused, and it came to both locations. Oddly, when I send a reply from Trillian, the chat window closes in Gmail.

Re: Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful

#72

Post by pdkl95 »

yoasif_ wrote: post #55
mtgx wrote: post #6

Does it come with end-to-end encryption yet? It's a strange world we live in where I feel my data is safer in a Facebook app than in a Google one.

"Critics are quick to point out that if a user is not paying for a product, they are the product, and of course encrypting notifications from Facebook won't stop the social media behemoth from accessing all the data itself. The only way to protect one's data from Facebook is to stop using Facebook." http://readwrite.com/2015/06/03/facebook-pgp-encryption

https://projectbullrun.org/surveillance/2015/video-2015.html...

Aral Balkan's talk is a highly effective explanation of this problem. Of course, it's not that popular here given how it exposes the "big data"/"free" malware that is popular in Silicon Valley. Just look at the apparatchik in this thread, talking about features when they should be talking about how to set up a proper federated (and encrypted) protocol.

Why else would Google disable many of the features of XMPP federation? Allowing federated XMPP servers wouldn't give them the surveillance data.

Re: Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful

#73

Post by robbrit »

realusername wrote: post #42
avolcano wrote: post #2

And here I was excited thinking that they'd finally fixed the terrible performance and interface of the browser app.

Most of my friends actually moved to Skype because of this.

Interesting, poor performance (and also chewing through battery) was why I moved from Skype.

Re: Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful

#74

Post by robbrit »

ryandvm wrote: post #27

Hangouts is "okay" at best. I continue to be amazed that companies like Microsoft and Google are so bad at instant messaging that upstarts like Slack can eat their lunch with essentially hosted IRC and a pretty client.

Not so much an "upstart like Slack", more like "a giant pool of upstarts, the best of which happens to be Slack." When looking at it like this, it's easy to see why Microsoft and Google (or any big company for that matter) has trouble competing.

Re: Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful

#75

Post by Nullabillity »

shmerl wrote: post #28

Does it support WebRTC phone calling from the browser? Hangouts annoys me for a number of reasons however. And the biggest one is the fact that Google used it as a pretense to kill their federated XMPP service. This literally cut more than a half of my contacts off (i.e. those who use Google), because they don't accept bugs for enabling server to server encryption anymore. I don't remember being upset about Google me…

Really? I'm 99% sure that it's been using WebRTC for about a year now.

Re: Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful

#76

Post by bazzargh »

izacus wrote: post #7

Of course, I still have to run Chrome just for a slow and terrible browser interface on the desktop. Which was a major annoyance (especially since for some reason using Safari extends battery life for a huge amount) that caused me to switch to Telegram.

There were a pile of power management fixes coming in Chrome 45 - see https://plus.google.com/+PeterKasting/posts/GpL63A1K2TF

...currently out there in the beta update stream, shouldn't be far off now.

Re: Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful

#77

Post by jtchang »

Does anyone else think there is an opportunity for an easier to work with chat/text program?

Ideally it would have a semi open infrastructure like IRC. I would design it with less functionality than XMPP. The clients would be closed source. Or maybe this is Telegram already.

Re: Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful

#78

Post by chimeracoder »

Nullabillity wrote: post #70
StavrosK wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ache for the old GTalk Android application too. Also very Unix, then Google had to go and be all walled-garden. I hate how I have to have three separate IM clients, each with its own half-baked implementation on at least one platform, just so I can talk to all my friends. Too bad corporate interests are against openness. I really would have liked it if all services were interoperable with one another.

Their Android application still didn't support federated contacts even when it was based on XMPP.

> Their Android application still didn't support federated contacts even when it was based on XMPP

If I remember correctly, it did, and then they removed the feature.

They claim it was due to spam, but really, there are a number of ways to solve that problem without removing the feature entirely (ranging from better spam-prevention heuristics to requiring an explicit opt-in).

Hangouts is in all ways inferior to Google Talk. It's really a shame.

Re: Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful

#79

Post by micampe »

Zikes wrote: post #5

The only features I want are setting availability status and getting online notifications for contacts. IMs have had those features for decades, and contrary to Google's narrow worldview not everybody is online and available 24/7.

> IMs have had those features for decades

Yes, and 90% of my contacts have been “away” 100% of the time for just as long. Presence information is useless, I’ve been ignoring it for years.

What is the problem you want to avoid? People interrupting you. This is much better solved with a client side option that you control, without relying on the other user’s judgment.

I really like the Do Not Disturb feature in iOS and OS X: it works for the entire system instead of a single program and I fully control it, it doesn’t depend on you interpreting my signal that I’m “busy”.

Send me whatever messages you want any time you want, if I can respond I will, if I don’t want to be interrupted my phone won't make a bleep no matter how hard you push.

Preemptive rebuttal: “the system can turn off notifications when I set myself as away” then why set away in the first place? It has no meaning other than “do not disturb me”.

Re: Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful

#80

Post by shmerl »

Nullabillity wrote: post #75
shmerl wrote: post #28

Does it support WebRTC phone calling from the browser? Hangouts annoys me for a number of reasons however. And the biggest one is the fact that Google used it as a pretense to kill their federated XMPP service. This literally cut more than a half of my contacts off (i.e. those who use Google), because they don't accept bugs for enabling server to server encryption anymore. I don't remember being upset about Google me…

Really? I'm 99% sure that it's been using WebRTC for about a year now.

It might be using it partially, but it still relies on that plugin blob. No idea why they can't use a pure WebRTC solution.
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