Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

Post by zobzu » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 2:19 AM UTC

adsljfl3 wrote: post #346

jacobsenscott wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We switched from google hangouts to zoom a while ago because the quality "felt" better. We are a small distributed team where our internet connections run the range of fast to slow. We didn't track numbers or anything, but fewer dropouts, frozen videos, better sound quality, etc. Maybe we all just had better internet days each time we used zoom though. Never know. The UI is initially confusing, but so is the UI for e…

Zoom is better at quality. To give an example, they prioritize audio over anything else. Which makes sense because if you can't understand what the person is saying, you can't have a meeting. So they automatically downgrade or upgrade your video to try to keep latency decent on audio. Meet just has a manual setting where you can up or downgrade video or audio.

Post by abnry » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 2:26 AM UTC

rangibaby wrote: post #329

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but why does it matter if China intercepts your American school children? Why would they want to? That's not a reasonable threat model.

It still leaks information. How many kids you have, their name, some things about their personality, who they are friends with, etc. Think about how someone who wants to hurt or control you could could use that information.

Post by shbooms » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 2:55 AM UTC

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #328

klenwell wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that puts me off about Zoom is the way it tries to push you into downloading the desktop app when the web app should be fine and is what I prefer. It uses shitty dark patterns that require two or three clicks and at one point, if I'm not mistaken, waiting for a link to appear after a delay. In my most recent experience with it, it led to a zip file being automatically downloaded to my computer. This when I…

> One thing that puts me off about Zoom is the way it tries to push you into downloading the desktop app when the web app should be fine and is what I prefer. I'm pretty sure they do that because their web app is garbage, and they know people will get a much better experience in the native app. Notably, Zoom's native app is truly native; it's not some electron wrapper like Slack or Teams. I don't think it's a coincid…

Post by manojlds » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 3:03 AM UTC

QUFB wrote: post #83

Some thoughts: 1. Google's threat model may not be your threat model, and it definitely isn't the threat model of my daughter's school. A corporation like Google may be concerned using native applications, written in unsafe languages, written by developers from other corporations in China. That said, Zoom isn't wrong for everyone. 2. Google is motivated to push their own solution for obvious reasons. 3. Tavis, or oth…

Post by shbooms » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 3:07 AM UTC

philliphaydon wrote: post #354

enneff wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine most people who want MS Office over Google Docs probably want it for Excel, which IIUC as several powerful features not present in Google's Sheets.

The only thing Google Docs has over MS is the collaboration. Word in the browser is a billion times better for formatting than Google Docs. I loath using google docs. But when it comes to Collab, Google docs wins hands down.