I used this today to videochat with my Mom. It easily passed the Mom test. Just make sure to tell them they need to use chrome and send them the link. I don't often comment, but this is one time...
I used this today to videochat with my Mom. It easily passed the Mom test. Just make sure to tell them they need to use chrome and send them the link.
I don't often comment, but this is one time I'd like to thank OP for posting this. That half-hour chat has made my entire day brighter, and I plan to use this with the rest of my family.
Jitsi Meet is not secure by most modern definitions. It is not end-to-end encrypted, and so unless you are running your own server, 8x8, the company running the default server, has access to all...
Jitsi Meet is not secure by most modern definitions. It is not end-to-end encrypted, and so unless you are running your own server, 8x8, the company running the default server, has access to all of your audio and video.
This is in the Jitsi Meet readme:
WebRTC does not (yet) provide a way of conducting multi-party conversations with end-to-end encryption. Unless you consistently compare DTLS fingerprints with your peers vocally, the same goes for one-to-one calls. As a result, your stream is encrypted on the network but decrypted on the machine that hosts the bridge when using Jitsi Meet.
The Jitsi Meet architecture allows you to deploy your own version, including all server components. In that case, your security guarantees will be roughly equivalent to a direct one-to-one WebRTC call. This is the uniqueness of Jitsi Meet in terms of security.
The meet.jit.si service is maintained by the Jitsi team at 8x8.
Thanks for bringing this up; that's very important to know. If anyone with title-edit permissions wants to change the title, feel free. I simply copied the tagline over from their site. While I...
Thanks for bringing this up; that's very important to know. If anyone with title-edit permissions wants to change the title, feel free. I simply copied the tagline over from their site.
While I still think the service is valuable as a near-frictionless video chat, does anyone know if there is a similarly easy (or even any) end-to-end encrypted group video chat service?
What I've found with WebRTC-based services is that quality breaks down quickly as you attempt to scale (beyond 6 people in a call) because they were limited by being peer-to-peer. Jitsi seems to...
What I've found with WebRTC-based services is that quality breaks down quickly as you attempt to scale (beyond 6 people in a call) because they were limited by being peer-to-peer. Jitsi seems to have matured nicely since the last time I looked, because, according to this page, they claim to scale to many hundreds of connections with just a single server of modest specs. The last FLOSS WebRTC solution I tried was Nextcloud Talk, and after the very arduous installation journey I went through, the UX itself proved that NCT was very unreliable, rife with connection difficulties. But this sounds promising. I might have to give Jitsi Meet a try (on my server). Hopefully installation is easy.
Sharing this here because it's an easy, dead simple way of getting group audio/video chat up and running. On PC, the only requirement is Chrome/Chromium (it allegedly works on other browsers but...
Sharing this here because it's an easy, dead simple way of getting group audio/video chat up and running.
On PC, the only requirement is Chrome/Chromium (it allegedly works on other browsers but might have issues). All you have to do to set up a room is enter an easy-to-remember room name. To get on people just have to enter the room name on the site, or go directly to the link you send them.
On mobile devices you have to download an app, but it, again, Just Works and is super easy for people to get on (bonus: it's available through F-Droid on Android).
My husband and I did a video dinner and game night with his family, and then played some distance Jackbox games (it supports screen sharing), and it worked flawlessly. We're also using it in place of Discord for group audio during gaming with some of our friends.
No idea. When I try using Firefox with it, it doesn't seem to work. It recognizes my mic and webcam, but even after giving them permissions it doesn't transmit my audio or video. I also get a...
No idea. When I try using Firefox with it, it doesn't seem to work. It recognizes my mic and webcam, but even after giving them permissions it doesn't transmit my audio or video. I also get a notification recommending that I use Chrome/Chromium instead. It works seamlessly for me on Chromium.
Looked into the issue a little more, apparently it's not that Firefox doesn't work (although that happens sometimes), it's that Firefox works in a way that makes large group calls scale worse for...
Looked into the issue a little more, apparently it's not that Firefox doesn't work (although that happens sometimes), it's that Firefox works in a way that makes large group calls scale worse for everyone in the call. There's a good handful of Firefox issues open that are blocking Jitsi from full support.
I used this to do a group chat with some friends while we watched a movie and it worked great. I just sent them the link and they all joined with one click.
I used this to do a group chat with some friends while we watched a movie and it worked great. I just sent them the link and they all joined with one click.
There's Netflix Party if you want to keep exactly in sync, too. Everyone uses their own Netflix account, it just syncs the play/pause/skip events - and gives you a text chat on the side, but we've...
There's Netflix Party if you want to keep exactly in sync, too. Everyone uses their own Netflix account, it just syncs the play/pause/skip events - and gives you a text chat on the side, but we've been ignoring that and running video chat at the same time.
Zoom seems to have become the go-to, which I've gone along with in the interests of keeping in touch, but I'm dubious about their security history, and the 40 minute limit gets irritating. Tried Jitsi today for a chat and games session and it was great, so I'm going to push it for the next movie night too.
I used this today to videochat with my Mom. It easily passed the Mom test. Just make sure to tell them they need to use chrome and send them the link.
I don't often comment, but this is one time I'd like to thank OP for posting this. That half-hour chat has made my entire day brighter, and I plan to use this with the rest of my family.
I'm glad it worked out for you! Being able to spend time with family, even digitally, was a huge mood boost for us as well.
Jitsi Meet is not secure by most modern definitions. It is not end-to-end encrypted, and so unless you are running your own server, 8x8, the company running the default server, has access to all of your audio and video.
This is in the Jitsi Meet readme:
It appears there's some disagreement about this.
Dang. Maybe the title here should be changed then.
Thanks for bringing this up; that's very important to know. If anyone with title-edit permissions wants to change the title, feel free. I simply copied the tagline over from their site.
While I still think the service is valuable as a near-frictionless video chat, does anyone know if there is a similarly easy (or even any) end-to-end encrypted group video chat service?
What I've found with WebRTC-based services is that quality breaks down quickly as you attempt to scale (beyond 6 people in a call) because they were limited by being peer-to-peer. Jitsi seems to have matured nicely since the last time I looked, because, according to this page, they claim to scale to many hundreds of connections with just a single server of modest specs. The last FLOSS WebRTC solution I tried was Nextcloud Talk, and after the very arduous installation journey I went through, the UX itself proved that NCT was very unreliable, rife with connection difficulties. But this sounds promising. I might have to give Jitsi Meet a try (on my server). Hopefully installation is easy.
Sharing this here because it's an easy, dead simple way of getting group audio/video chat up and running.
On PC, the only requirement is Chrome/Chromium (it allegedly works on other browsers but might have issues). All you have to do to set up a room is enter an easy-to-remember room name. To get on people just have to enter the room name on the site, or go directly to the link you send them.
On mobile devices you have to download an app, but it, again, Just Works and is super easy for people to get on (bonus: it's available through F-Droid on Android).
My husband and I did a video dinner and game night with his family, and then played some distance Jackbox games (it supports screen sharing), and it worked flawlessly. We're also using it in place of Discord for group audio during gaming with some of our friends.
It used to support Firefox, any idea what happened?
No idea. When I try using Firefox with it, it doesn't seem to work. It recognizes my mic and webcam, but even after giving them permissions it doesn't transmit my audio or video. I also get a notification recommending that I use Chrome/Chromium instead. It works seamlessly for me on Chromium.
Looked into the issue a little more, apparently it's not that Firefox doesn't work (although that happens sometimes), it's that Firefox works in a way that makes large group calls scale worse for everyone in the call. There's a good handful of Firefox issues open that are blocking Jitsi from full support.
I used this to do a group chat with some friends while we watched a movie and it worked great. I just sent them the link and they all joined with one click.
Did you screenshare the movie through Jitsi, or did you just use it to chat while everyone watched the movie on their own devices?
We all just hit play at the same time and used headphones. I tried screensharing Netflix but we had DRM issues.
There's Netflix Party if you want to keep exactly in sync, too. Everyone uses their own Netflix account, it just syncs the play/pause/skip events - and gives you a text chat on the side, but we've been ignoring that and running video chat at the same time.
Zoom seems to have become the go-to, which I've gone along with in the interests of keeping in touch, but I'm dubious about their security history, and the 40 minute limit gets irritating. Tried Jitsi today for a chat and games session and it was great, so I'm going to push it for the next movie night too.