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How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare?

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Re: How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare?

#341

Post by Dylan16807 »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #288
jackson1way wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Introducing Skype Lite Built for India - Chat and share with friends." it appears to exist only for Android phones. It's nothing but a joke that you'd have to switch to a "lite" version that is built explicitly for India [because of bad infrastructure] just to make it work in a country with much better infrastructure. It's like buying a low-end car built for Indian market, because your regular car doesn't fit on the…

This is a worthless analogy, because some software is paired down and is "built for india" it sucks? A paired down debloated skype sounds like a godsend to me.

...that's not what they were saying at all. The insults were being heaped on the 'normal' skype.

And skype lite is definitely lacking in configuration, like the ability to make emoticons less annoying.

(I've also switched to skype lite for the remaining two chats I'm in that use skype, now that the slightly-older android version stopped connecting and the newest interface is amazingly painful and laggy.)

Re: How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare?

#342

Post by andersonfreitas »

amedvednikov wrote: post #240
signal11 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you didn't use Jabber, the #1 reason I recommended Google Talk was that it was very, very lightweight at a time when MSN Messenger and friends were adding stickers and other teenager/young-adult friendly* features. Today, ironically your choices for relatively straightforward messaging on the PC/Mac are: iMessage (Mac only), Skype for Business (the consumer client is too distracting for words), Whatsapp Web,…

I'm working on a lightweight native client for all major messengers: https://eul.im It's only 90 KB (!) Right now there's an old barely usable alpha out, but a new release is coming up next week.

Looks promising, keep working on it!

Re: How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare?

#344

Post by eridius »

cpeterso wrote: post #336
StudentStuff wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chrome extension used should work just fine with Firefox, but Google would rather try and force vendor lock-in. At this point I just use Jitsi, it works every time without any browser extensions to do a quick video conference or screen share.

When it launched in 2013, Hangouts used an NPAPI plugin that worked in most browsers. In 2014, Google ported Hangouts to WebRTC for Chrome only because it relied on non-standard WebRTC features only implemented in Chrome. Note that Firefox did support WebRTC at this time and Mozilla in fact developed its own WebRTC video chat service in 2014 called "Hello" that worked in Firefox and Chrome. In 2015, Mozilla announced…

Thanks for the info. I totally forgot Hangouts was still using an NPAPI plugin, and I didn't realize Firefox dropped support for those too. Doesn't explain why Safari wouldn't be supported though, as Safari still supports NPAPI plugins.

Re: How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare?

#345

Post by stephengillie »

delfinom wrote: post #328
Shoothe wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can relate to this. Google's services became less and less useful over time. I even replaced Hangouts with self-hosted XMPP server while previously I thought custom would mean a lot of trouble. After a while test driving it I migrated entire family (Conversations.im on Android works great and we've got encrypted E2E chats). Now I'm thinking about hosting my own calendars (kind of easy) and email (scary).

I've been finding Google Calendar incredibly buggy as of late as well as other services. It's like they don't care anymore.

Google can't organize the world's data if the world won't trust Google with the data in the first place.

Re: How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare?

#346

Post by pasbesoin »

bootlooped wrote: post #340
pasbesoin wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. There's a reason users/clients have come to fear the Google acquisition of a product they've come to depend on and in which they've vested hopes of continued improvements and solutions. At least Google hasn't outright put a bullet in Voice, yet.

My understanding is that Google Voice has some partial cover in that it is the backbone of Google Fi.

And just try keeping a distinct Google Voice set up, if/when you sign up for Fi.

Unless you're very careful, they mush together your Voice and Fi accounts, irreversibly.

When Fi was in its early days, a lot of Fi users found this out the hard way and were pissed about it. People who'd been using Voice, maintaining a separate Voice #, and who wanted to keep it that way. Who DIDN'T want that number suddenly tied to a/their cell phone.

(Hint: Create a separate browser profile (not just a Google account, but an actual separate profile under its own sub-directory). Sign up for a different Gmail/Google account. Use one account for Google Voice, and the other for Google Fi. Don't accidentally cross-pollinate.)

Re: How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare?

#347

Post by ossguy »

smt88 wrote: post #313
ossguy wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For people that use Google Voice, that's often the hardest Google service to leave. You can get similar features with https://jmp.chat/ - it supports text and picture messaging (and voicemail transcription) and you can port in your Google Voice number to make the transition seamless for your contacts.

But how do I know they'll be around in a year or let me save my number?

As with all carriers that offer US (and Canadian) numbers, they are required by law to let you port your number away. So you can always bring your number elsewhere if they decide to close up shop.

And if that happens, likely someone will setup another instance and keep the same service running. That's another great advantage of JMP over Google Voice: all the code is free and open source, so anyone is free to run their own instance if they like. In fact, you could run your own instance right from the start and then be in complete control of whether JMP keeps working for you.

Re: How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare?

#348

Post by mastazi »

4ad wrote: post #229
mastazi wrote: post #173

I use Google Hangouts from time to time, not my favourite IM app but some of the criticism in the article is inaccurate. I can definitely tell when someone is online (article says you can't), and I have been using the desktop app for a while (article says there is no desktop app). Note: the desktop app doesn't seem to be native (I think I got it from the Chrome store) however it's definitely a desktop app in the sens…

Are you kidding me, you can't even click on hyperlinks in that "desktop" app. You have to copy-paste them manually in your browser. Edit: It seems the links do open, but they open silently in one of my minimized browser Windows. And of course it opens in chrome even though my default browser is Safari. Wonderful quality.

I haven't stated anything that contradicts what you said

Re: How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare?

#349

Post by tramtrist »

amedvednikov wrote: post #294
pmlnr wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not native, not 90KB. The first thing it does is downloading an embedded web browser. 90KB the installer. Not native either. libpurple is native.

v0.26 used to do that. Not v0.27. And yes, v0.27 is a 90KB native app. It will be released on Feb 14.

Pretty impressive. Any chance of tying it to IRSSI or making an IRC gateway like bitlbee? I connect to almost all those services through bitlbee already and it works pretty well. Add Naver Line support as well and I'm sold..

Re: How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare?

#350

Post by kwindla »

eight_ender wrote: post #103

Our entire company ran on GTalk for a while, then Slack landed like the Spanish Flu and the IRC++ like features pushed every other medium out, except for some, email. Hangouts was used in meeting rooms for a while but it was so horrendously unreliable that we switched to GotoMeetings then Zoom. Zoom is less shit than the others but still fairly awful. Slack, imo, solved instant messaging in businesses completely, but…

Shameless plug, our startup makes a video-calling-in-Chrome application. Our goals are being super-reliable, simple, and free: https://daily.co
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