Google's most utilized chat tool
Google Hangouts product has been a venerable bulwark in the communication apps space. Google Hangouts remains a popular and suitable chat application for millions. Built on a concise and powerful software, Hangouts became Google’s most utilized chat application. This will all be changing in the near future, however. Hangouts is experiencing a transition period that will culminate in its eventual abandonment. For the time being, Hangouts will remain a stable and efficient chat application through October 2019. At that time, Google will migrate all G Suite customers to Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet. Classic Hangouts, as it is now known, will be serviced through the end of the year but will likely be retired sometime in 2020. Hangouts is on its final flight and poised for the scrap yard.
Hangouts was once a steady chat app
Use Google Hangouts to keep in touch with one person or a group. Available on mobile or on desktop, start making video or voice calls today. Chrome bundle for Windows 32-bit. 68.94.124 The MSI installer ProductVersion differs from the Chrome version number. Email Download link.
Set for the gallows in 2020, the time has come to hang up on Google Hangouts.
Hangouts’ bread and butter is sending instant messages as a faster and cheaper SMS alternative. It is nimble and powerful enough for the average talk via text customer. It is also discreet enough to save space and time by omitting superfluous features. Many use it to inconspicuously contact friends while at work. Because it nests neatly in the Gmail account or browser page, users avoid sitting awkwardly, hunched over a cell phone as they attempt to evade the boss’ attention. The user is always greeted with a clean dashboard, organized with intuitive icons. Consumers will find their past conversations neatly stacked in cards in the dashboard. One should use this application to send instant messages and conduct video and, or voice calls.
Customers can mute themselves, add people to threads, or stop video recording while on call. The designers have done a premium job, upgrading the professionalism available in the app. Simply draw up the settings tab to deploy a lower-third banner to display a name or title while on a work conference. Hangouts has been known to slowly load a pixelated image, get choppy or lose a call. To help with connectivity, you can choose to stop video recording to use less data or call upon the 'adjust bandwidth use' button. Hangouts is also a pleasantly pain-free and reliable way to schedule work conferences and interviews.
Enter Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet. Chat and Meet look to be enterprise-friendly variations of the more commercial-friendly Classic Hangouts. Think, Slack, rather than WhatsApp. In truth, however, these products have virtually nothing to do with one another aside from their similar names. Chat and Meet launched 10 months ago whereas Classic Hangout, built as an in-place upgrade to Google Talk has a user-base spanning 13 years back. Perhaps the developer seeks to leverage the brand recognition and trust placed in Hangouts in its attempt to penetrate Slack’s corporate carve-out. Once one accounts for the power within G Suite’s plethora of work accessories, this line of thinking makes a lot of sense. Due to the on-going transition, users may deploy many exciting new features in Hangouts. Hangouts Chat will allow for chatting with users outside its particular domain. It will have Google voice integration and deep integration with Gmail. It will also provide for enhanced video calling beyond the at present, standard 720p. App integration has exploded the possibilities available in Hangouts. This allows for access within the program to many other programs, such as Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, and countless more third-party developers. With G Suite apps fully integrated into the workplace chatbox, team projects will be more centralized, streamlined, and transparent than ever.
Apps that chat
Your proclivity may be found elsewhere. Here are a few chat app options and the key character to draw you over. Slack is centered on channels where team members instant message, and share files, photos, and videos. Slack provides the meeting place to integrate other devices and drives. Slack’s design goal is to synergize office workflow and explode your team’s productivity.
WhatsApp is there to put a smile to a friend’s face. This app is home to customizable fonts, gifs, emojis, and stickers. Its interface is tooled to keep pace in the flow of an enjoyable conversation.
Facebook Messenger is a natural extension of Facebook’s environment itself. There are not many flashy new developments on this platform, although they can be discovered with just a bit of effort. This is the chat app for those who quite simply need to get a casual message to the right person.
Where can you run this program?
You can run this application on Window’s or Mac systems. You can also obtain a free application download for iPhone or Android. The need to create a Gmail account may be enough to deter many away from Hangouts. In fact, the choice to use a chat app will likely already be made for many. We use the apps our friends use.
Is there a better alternative?
If your friends do not already have a Gmail account then there are plenty of perfectly adequate alternatives destined to fill your demands.
Our take
Classic Hangouts is slated to become a legacy product as Google unveils Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet. At the moment, Google Hangouts deserves neither great recognition nor ire. If you use it to talk to your friends, pick up the immensely more popular and enjoyable WhatsApp. If you use Hangouts at work, the likelihood you pick up Google Chat is dependent on your dissatisfaction with your company’s current chat software rather than your satisfaction with Classic Hangouts. Google Hangouts is not undergoing a transformation.
Should you download it?
No, this is nothing less than a full replacement. It is time Hangouts is hung up.
Lows
- Terminated
- Outdated
- Boring
- Unsophisticated
Google Hangoutsfor Windows
2019.411.420.3
With the ongoing pandemic forcing everyone to stay indoors, video conferencing apps have risen both in importance and popularity. With apps like Zoom and Cisco Webex taking the spotlight, Google put forth it’s own Google Meet, which comes as a part of Google’s G Suite programs but also has a free to use version. The app was formerly known as Google Hangouts Meet.
However, the app is more suited to personal or small-scale use, since even its paid version can support only upto 250 members at a time, and is therefore not fit for large enterprises. It does prove itself useful in classrooms though, especially the free version which can host 100 members, since a single classroom’s strength is usually much less.
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Google Meet’s Features
Starting or joining a meeting is super easy with Google Meet, and its easily configurable UI coupled with its chat functionality provides for a seamless experience. Users can select their tile layouts, mute specific members, and even present their screens all whilst communicating through HD video and audio calling. It has made teaching, learning, and other activities which would normally require a gathering of people seem like a breeze all from the comfort of home.
Google Chat Download For Mac
The service comes as an added bonus to existing G Suite users, who can use the app along with the other G Suite products that complement each other. Google Meet is a steal for users who already enjoy the existing benefits of G Suite and now have a ready to use video conferencing tool at their fingertips, albeit a little basic.
Furthermore, Google Meet has the added advantage of Google’s state of the art encryption, meaning that privacy is guaranteed and it also prevents external users from spamming a meeting.
Multiple Layouts
As mentioned earlier, the service allows a user to choose from a number of different layouts as per their preference. These include multi-tiled, sidebar, and spotlight, and at the same time the number of participants you want to see in a multi-tiled layout can also be altered.
Screen Sharing
A must have feature for any video conferencing app these days, Meet allows sharing your screen and any content on it with just a click, making it super easy to present and display.
Real-Time Captions
Here is where the ‘Google’ in Google Meet stands out. Most commonly seen on YouTube videos, this feature will convert the speech of whoever is talking on call directly to a subtitle format, making it easy to understand what someone is saying, especially if there’s noise.
Noise Cancellation
Speaking of noise, G Suite owners can enjoy the app’s noise-cancellation feature, which basically dampens any background noise input entering a microphone, therefore reducing the total noise in call.
Ease of Use
All things said and done, Google Meet has a very simple UI that even the most tech unsavvy people could probably figure out in no time. There are no complicated settings or controls, just start or join a meeting using a meeting link and get working.
How to Use Google Meet for Windows?
Google Meet can not be installed as an application on Windows. While it can be downloaded on iOS and Android devices from their respective app markets, in order to use Google Meet on windows, simply head to Google Meet , from where one can choose to join or create a new meeting. The app will allow a user to turn on or switch off their microphones and cameras before entering a meeting. There is no separate procedure for G Suite owners, they will simply have access to the paid version of Google Meet through the same process provided they have an active G Suite subscription.
As for the requirements for running Google Meet, all you will need are :
Google Chat Mac Os
- A supported browser.
- A working webcam
- A functional microphone
- A strong internet connection
Alternatives for Google Meet
Zoom
Easily the most popular video conferencing app out there, Zoom is most likely the best alternative to Google Meet. It’s free version allows hosting of 100-member meetings for a duration of 40 minutes, which is less than what the free version of Google Meet allows, but it makes up for that with added features like drawing over screen and personal chats.
Skype
Skype has been the go-to video calling app for millions even before the world knew what Zoom or Google Meet was. It has been connecting people from all over the world through video calling successfully for decades, and can now support upto a hundred members in call. It also has the added support of file transfers.
Cisco Webex Meetings
This is a more enterprise friendly alternative to Meet, and is the go-to choice of many a Fortune500 company. Features like screen sharing, thousand member calls in HD video and audio, and personalised chats make it a competitor to be wary of.
GoToMeeting
Another reliable video conferencing app that is favoured by businesses, it boasts a simple and easy to use UI and is available across almost any Operating System.
FAQs
Can You Install Google Meet on PC?
No, Google Meet can only be used from the default browser in a PC.
How to Use Google Meet on PC?
Just open your default web browser and go to.