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Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

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Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#91

Post by nostrademons »

hacker_newz wrote: post #66

I interviewed at Google a while back for an SRE position working with the Hangouts team. My first interview was in another office and the audio in Hangouts session would not start. We ending up having to move on to the next interview. I'm not surprised even Google employees don't use it.

There was a running joke (out of frustration, really) back when I was at Google (2013) that Hangouts was happily adding hundreds of new emoji, yet did not consider "reliable message delivery" to be a key feature.

Some of this is consumer vs. enterprise tension, though. Emoji demo really well on an initial product tour; reliability is one of those key features that's really hard to get people excited about, but which people hate to find lacking.

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#92

Post by jedieaston »

mulmen wrote: post #38
kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Googlers don't use Zoom for company work. It was banned as in it can no longer be installed on corp laptops.

Right but it's also astonishing that was allowed before. If it's not needed for work why would it be installed? Why would any non-work software be allowed on corp laptops?

Because then you don't impede people who might need a new widget installed because everyone and their mother in IT needs to try it and test it before you can use it.

Especially at Google scale, where the BeyondCorp system described in their papers could automatically see when an endpoint was doing something naughty, block the user from accessing corporate resources, and give the user information on how to fix it, instead of blocking them from installing anything (even if what they want is perfectly harmless).

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#93

Post by ben0x539 »

crazygringo wrote: post #77

I mean, Google bans MS Office from employees' computers as well (with special-case exceptions), so they use Docs instead. Since Google has Meet (Hangouts), this isn't really surprising. It mainly sucks for when an employee (especially in sales) has a call with a client that uses Zoom and can't use Meet, because then you're forced to dial in, which just puts you at a disadvantage when everyone can see everyone's face…

From the article, only slightly misquoted:

> Employees who have been using Zoom [...] can continue to do so through a web browser or via mobile.

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#95

Post by falcolas »

pjmlp wrote: post #72
softwaredoug wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew I would get downvoted. But folks seriously don’t remember the pain before Zoom. And the current pain anytime we have to use a GoToMeeting, Google Meet, Webex or other tool that barely functions. Human interaction that actually works right now is so important. And I simply have a hard time trusting another product to actually do the call reliably

No idea what kind of unreliable networks people get to use, but WebEx has been quite good during the last 10 years.

So has Google Meet and Hangouts. So was Skype, when I used it about 5 years ago.

Perhaps I'm just used to them as a remote worker, but they were never all that janky to begin with. Or, rather, more janky than the other tools available at the time.

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#96

Post by milkthefat »

chvid wrote: post #55

Is there any technical merit to this ban? Why would forcing use of web version mitigate any concerns? (The concerns I have heard are lack of proper end-to-end encryption, servers in China and the possibility to join chatrooms by guessing a name (zoom-bombing)).

The Code execution vulns for both OSX and Win10 probably. In windows clicking a UNC path link would pass hashs. I believe for OSX there was an installer trick that allowed any code to run if triggered.

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#97

Post by IshKebab »

epa wrote: post #32

Hangouts is not that bad

It's pretty bad. I tried it alongside Zoom and Zoom was waaay better quality. Plus if you need anything more than very basic features Hangouts isn't an option. Hell it doesn't even have a gallery view. Forget recording, auto-muting participants, etc.

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#99

Post by [deleted] »

chvid wrote: post #87
mulmen wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems perfectly sensible to ban all software that is not pre-approved by IT, InfoSec and Legal. You can't safely assume all your employees are properly assessing the risks unless that is their actual job. If you only allow what you know then you can reason about your risk.

This reads like it is specifically targeting zoom.

[deleted]

Re: Google bans Zoom from employees' computers

#100

Post by NikolaNovak »

softwaredoug wrote: post #30

God please don't make me use a non-zoom video conferencing tool! I have used about a dozen over the years in my role as a consultant, and Zoom has been by far the most reliable. I’m hopeful lots of good can come from the scrutiny, but please Zoom get your act together so I don’t have to use some other buggy thing that doesn’t actually work.

It's fascinating to see people's experiences.

I've been using WebEx in enterprise/corporate environment for couple of years intensively, and it "just works". I can download desktop client, but I can also just run it on browser.

Zoom always wants to install weird clients that violate policies and cause my corporate laptops to refuse or bork.

I recognize my experience may be a minority one, but I'm surprised, genuinely, at this perception that it's "the one video conferencing software" that works.

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