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Free software tools for staying in touch

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Re: Free software tools for staying in touch

#41

Post by kardos »

joecot wrote: post #36
deminature wrote: post #2

Jitsi is the primarily recommended alternative video conferencing tool here, which hasn't had anywhere near the security scrutiny that Zoom has had. I'd prefer to use the tool that we understand is moderately secure, though flawed, rather than the tool that is a security unknown. It seems a little much to recommend Jitsi as 'better', when nobody is really sure of that.

Jitsi Meet runs on your own server and lets you videoconference using just your browser and its built in support for WebRTC. That means it gets to leverage the readily available and easily understood security of: * Traditional Web Servers (Apache 2 or nginx) * https/ssl * modern web browsers Running a videoconference software that just works in your browser over https solves a large majority of security concerns. The…

The web app runs on TCP/443 and benefits from your Let's Encrypt cert. Jitsi also exposes UDP/10000 for receiving streams from clients, which doesn't go through apache/nginx. So what does it do for encryption there?

Re: Free software tools for staying in touch

#43

Post by dang »

Recent and related:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22765899

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22758131

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22756728

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22755596

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22669968

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22477785

Recent and seemingly related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22761816

Not so recent: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16155155

Not so recent and maybe not so related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20311324

Re: Free software tools for staying in touch

#45

Post by tome »

tw04 wrote: post #27
thomzane wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Free Software Foundation refers to free as in freedom and not free as in cost.

I'm aware of what the FSF is. Downvoting me because I posted free-as-in-beer alternatives that aren't open source is childish. They're valid alternatives for people that don't want to use zoom and entirely relevant to the conversation.

It's as though the title was "Try these green ways to generate energy" and you responded with a list of petrol engines which are painted green. It's not wrong, it's not unhelpful, per se, but does somewhat miss the point.

Re: Free software tools for staying in touch

#47

Post by okprod »

tw04 wrote: post #27
thomzane wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Free Software Foundation refers to free as in freedom and not free as in cost.

I'm aware of what the FSF is. Downvoting me because I posted free-as-in-beer alternatives that aren't open source is childish. They're valid alternatives for people that don't want to use zoom and entirely relevant to the conversation.

OP's post is about choosing free software alternatives in place of proprietary software that abuses your rights. You recommending more proprietary software is entirely against what the FSF's article is saying.

Re: Free software tools for staying in touch

#48

Post by pxx »

tw04 wrote: post #11

Webex is free right now, they just haven't really marketed it: https://help.webex.com/en-us/n80v1rcb/Cisco-Webex-Available-... Hangouts Meet which I've had bad luck with but others have told me works well is free: https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/g-suite/helping-busin... And MS Teams has a free trial (had good luck with this as well but don't like the interface as much as webex): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us…

Hangouts Meet isn't free (as in beer or as in speech). It's just that the premium version is free if you're enrolled for the lower-tier version. Note that this product differs in many ways from the "free" Hangouts.

Re: Free software tools for staying in touch

#49

Post by dsr_ »

atonse wrote: post #26

Going to put my bias out in the open. My whole career has benefited from Open Source, yet when I see something from the FSF, I automatically assume it's going to be ugly and not user-friendly. Has anyone tried any of these FSF sanctioned tools? I'd love to have my bias be proven wrong.

Jitsi is very good. You can try it out at meet.jit.si or install your own server in about 30 minutes. (Yesterday's updated Debian packages improved things immensely.)
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