The best video call apps to use while you're social distancing - CNBC
The best video call apps to use while you're social distancing - CNBC |
- The best video call apps to use while you're social distancing - CNBC
- What Is the Most Secure Video Conferencing Software? - VICE
- WhatsApp officially brings Dark Mode to Android and iOS - Android Central
| The best video call apps to use while you're social distancing - CNBC Posted: 31 Mar 2020 10:23 AM PDT  Apply fun filters or use your Memoji to talk. Todd Haselton | CNBC As the coronavirus continues to keep us indoors, the best way to stay in touch with family and friends right now is through a video call. And everyone seems to be doing it. Last Friday, I had a birthday party on Zoom, a work happy hour on Slack and a family video call over Facebook Portal. It's not just me. The top free apps in Apple's App Store right now include Zoom, TikTok, Houseparty, Google Classroom, Google Hangouts, Squad and others, a sign that many are looking for new ways to connect while locked down. But you may not know which app to use. Often, the best choice is to just pick whatever everyone else is using in the moment. It seems like there's now an app for every different situation. Maybe you use Zoom to chat with colleagues and FaceTime for friends and family. It all depends on your situation. These are some of the best apps for video calls, and the features they include. Best video call app for iPhoneYou can use pretty much any video chat app on an iPhone, but if you're purely staying in touch with other Mac, iPhone and iPad users, it's easiest to just stick with Apple's FaceTime. It supports up to 32 users at once, has been really reliable for me over the past few weeks and adds fun things like 3D face masks to spice up the chat. It's also probably the easiest to use, since it's built right into all of Apple's gadgets. For that reason, I think it's best for staying in touch with seniors, such as grandparents and parents who just want something really simple and safe. I like how it automatically detects who is speaking and makes their video the largest. Plus, it's encrypted, which means the calls are totally private. Apple says it doesn't gather any data about your FaceTime calls. But it's still a bummer if you just want to add one person who's on an Android device or Windows PC. You can't do it. Best video call apps for AndroidGoogle Duo video chat with 8 people. Google Duo isn't usually mentioned as a top video chat app, but I like it for a few reasons when I'm making calls to Android users from an Android phone. First, you can see the caller before you pick up (if they have the feature active) which is a neat touch. It's also, like FaceTime, built right into the dialer of some phones, like Google Pixels and the latest Samsung phones, so you can just dial a number and hit the video chat button. Google just bumped the maximum up to 12 people on a call, which isn't as many as FaceTime, but it works on Apple devices, web browsers and Android, so it's easier to get people using different gadgets together. Best video call apps for iPhone and AndroidJaap Arriens | NurPhoto | Getty Images OK, maybe you're trying to call an Android phone from an iPhone, or vice versa. You could use Google Duo, but there's an alternative that I like even better: WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook. Google Duo doesn't have a regular text chat option, but WhatsApp is awesome for massive group chats and it supports video calls with up to 16 people or voice calls with up to 32 people at the same time. It's owned by Facebook but, unlike Facebook Messenger, it supports end-to-end encryption for keeping your video calls private. Plus, it works with the Facebook Portal, which is one of my favorite video calling systems. Best video call apps for business usersA Zoom call. CNBC A few video call apps come to mind for business users who need to make conference calls. It really comes down to what your company lets you use and what your IT department pays for. Some of the most popular ones include Cisco Webex, Zoom, Slack, Microsoft's Skype, Google Hangouts or Microsoft Teams. It's a personal opinion, but I've had the most fun with Zoom, since it lets me customize my backgrounds so I can hide the messy room behind me and put something fun, like the CNBC newsroom, behind me. Like the other apps, it lets you screen share, so you can show colleagues what you're working on, or host a Powerpoint presentation. Zoom is free for up to 100 people for 40 minutes. I like that time limit for free calls. It forces people to end the call instead of dragging on forever. Plus, it seems like most people already have it installed, thanks to its recent surge in popularity. But Zoom's rise has also come with some downsides. In recent weeks, the company has faced criticism for its privacy policy, which said it sent some data to Facebook, even if you don't have a Facebook account. Zoom later updated its mobile apps to remove the data sharing with Facebook. Best video call apps for hanging out with friendsThe Houseparty app icon is seen displayed on phone screen in this illustration photo. Jakub Porzycki | NurPhoto via Getty Images There are three apps you might not have heard of: Houseparty, Squad and Discord. They're totally different, but you should know about them. Houseparty lets you video chat with up to 12 people across iPhone, Android, Mac and Chrome web browsers. But it's more than just video chat. You can share your screen, or play games like Heads Up ($0.99), which requires you to guess the word on a card above your head. I haven't seen this myself, but some folks have suggested other accounts were hacked after using Houseparty. The company is denying that and offering $1 million to anyone who can prove it. Squad is similar to Houseparty. It lets you chat, make video calls and share your screen. But you can also shop with friends in any app, or easily watch TikTok and YouTube videos at the same time. It's free and supports up to nine people at a time. The new online PC game sales business designed by Discord offers a select menu of games curated by human staffers, as well as a subscription service. Other gaming sites offer thousands of games with algorithms making recommendations to users. Discord Discord is popular app primarily used by video game players to talk about the games. It lets you chat with a bunch of other people and host video calls with up to 10 folks. If you're into gaming, you can team up friends and play the same game with video chat.  |
| What Is the Most Secure Video Conferencing Software? - VICE Posted: 31 Mar 2020 08:11 AM PDT  Now that millions of people are practicing social distancing and working their office jobs from home because of coronavirus, video conferencing is more popular than ever. Whether you're just attending your regular work meetings, grabbing a beer with friends, or catching up with your extended family spread across the globe—all these fun activities now live thanks to video conferencing apps. The people's choice, more often than not, is Zoom. But it doesn't have to be. While Zoom offers end-to-end encrypted chat—meaning only the participants in the exchange have access to the contents of the messages—its video calls are not encrypted in the same way by default. Hosts, however, can enable end-to-end encryption in video calls too, according to the company. (UPDATE: A week after we originally published this story, the company told The Interceptthat it doesn't actually offer end-to-end encryption.) The app has a troubled record when it comes to security and privacy. Thanks to a creepy feature, hosts can track whether you are paying attention to the meeting, and the company's privacy policy allows it to collect all sorts of personal data. Last year, Zoom had a flaw that allowed hackers to turn on someone's webcam without their consent, and without them noticing. On top of that, when someone had the Zoom app closed and even uninstalled, the software left a web server up and running, allowing for an automated install of the app if someone invited the user to a Zoom call. Finally, Zoom makes it really hard for you to join calls without installing the app, even though that's possible. So, what other apps can you use instead of Zoom? FACETIMEThe obvious choice, if you have an Apple device, is FaceTime. Apple's video (and audio) conferencing app has been end-to-end encrypted for a very long time. On top of that, it's incredibly easy to use, and allows for up to 32 participants. The downside, of course, is that it's only for iOS and Mac users. So if you use Windows, the most popular operating system in the world, you're out of luck. Pros:
Cons:
JITSIA great cross-platform alternative is the little known Jitsi, which is not end-to-end encrypted, and has apps for Android and iOS. Jitsi also just works in a browser, without having to install anything. Jitsi is also open source, meaning anyone can inspect and contribute to the code. I have used it occasionally and it always worked very well. While the video streams in Jitsi are not end-to-end encrypted, Jisti allows users to run their own server so they can encrypt the video streams to this server, which they control. Pros:
Cons:
WhatsApp is the most popular chat app on the planet, it's end-to-end encrypted with state-of-the-art protocols, and is incredibly user-friendly. It's also cross platform, although video calls don't work on desktop. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of enterprise software, but if you're just looking to connect with a couple of friends or family, it's more than enough. Pros:
Cons:
WIREFinally, one of our favorite end-to-end encrypted chat apps, Wire, offers group video chat, but only to paying customers. Pros
Cons:
GOOGLE MEETIf you want something that's easy to use, but not end-to-end encrypted, you can always fall back on Google's alternative: Meet. Pros:
Cons:
ZOOMZoom has become the de-facto video calling app in the last few days, but it's far from perfect. Its privacy policy is vague and seems to indicate the company could sell some of your data. Calls are not end-to-end encrypted. Pros:
Cons:
Correction, March 30, 2020 at 10:30 a.m. ET: this story has been updated to clarify that Jitsi is NOT end-to-end encrypted. Update, March 31, 2020 at 1:11 p.m. ET: this story has been update to clarify that Zoom audio and video calls cannot be ent-to-end encrypted, as the company told The Intercept.  |
| WhatsApp officially brings Dark Mode to Android and iOS - Android Central Posted: 03 Mar 2020 10:39 AM PST  Daily Coronavirus updates: COVID-19 cases cross 800,000 globallyCOVID-19 has already infected over 720,000 people globally and caused over 34,000 fatalities. It has also had a huge impact on the tech industry, affecting the global supply chain and causing interminable product delays. Here are all the ways the coronavirus is affecting the world.  |
| You are subscribed to email updates from "android phone encryption app,google encrypted phone,turn off encryption android" - Google News. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
Comments
Post a Comment