What video conference app would be best suited for family to drop in on easter to chat

Tech Talk Internet
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I want to set up a video meeting for all my family to join periodically throughout the day on Easter Sunday. I’ll host the meeting and leave my laptop up with the meeting running and my family can pop in whenever to say ‘Hi’. I would probably say anytime from 2-4 or something like that.

My wife uses Zoom for her school meetings, this seems like a good option because my family would not have to create an account (am I right on that?). I have read it has a time limit, but that has been suspended for the time being.

I have also heard Leo praise Houseparty. Would my family have to create an account to join that meeting? This may be a deal breaker for some in my family.

Anything other than zoom or house party you would suggest?

What am I not thinking of?

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Zoom or Teams or WebEx would all do what you want. You would arrange the session and send invites to your family who would join when they are able to.

I’ve not used house party but I’ve used the three above for video conferences. You would need to check what their free tiers offer in terms of features and any costs.

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I did a test zoom with several members of my family today and it went well. I think that’s what I’ll use.

Thanks for the other suggestions.

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Depends on what you’re using it for. All of them are good for different things.

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At the moment, I wouldn’t touch Zoom with a barge pole, especially not the installed client. At best, I’d use the browser client in a throw-away VM, if there was no way around it. There are just too many security holes to be comfortable using the service on a Windows PC, Mac, Android or iOS.

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One advantage that Zoom has that I don’t know if the other apps has is the ability to share video at a decent frame rate.

We have a weekly get together with friends to watch church services together. To make sure everyone is together, one person (usually me as my NBN upstream is good) shares the stream from the church over Zoom with the option to optimise for video sharing. This works great with frame rate at 30 fps rather than 6 or 7 without the option.

The usual host pays for Zoom and has it buttoned down with password and waiting room. I don’t really have any qualms about using it.

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Hi, I used house party recently and although you can join a meeting via browser you do need to create an account and provide date of birth information.

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Thank you all for your replies. Privacy/Security concerns noted, we went ahead with Zoom anyway. It worked really well for us.

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