Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern

Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by quietbritishjim on Friday August 28, 2020 @12:49PM (#24307052)

And unlike many other services, the network effect is quite low because I can easily install multiple video conferencing software or even run some in the browser. If someone organising a meeting asks to use something unusual, I'm normally not that bothered.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by citizenkeen on Friday August 28, 2020 @02:16PM (#24308228)

My wife sees doctors at four different clinics. Each has chosen a different remote meeting solution. It's non-negotiable - to see your doctor remotely, you need to use their software. And that's just in one field.

I'm not concerned about Zoom monopoly at all.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by AdamJacobMuller on Friday August 28, 2020 @02:38PM (#24308469)

With COVID my grandfather has been doing telepresence visits with his doctors, for COVID among other reasons.

Mostly they were using a 3rd party solution like webx/zoom/etc but one doctor (automated in an online form) noticed his number was tied to iMessage and offered to just FaceTime him at his appointment time. Super easy for him (at 94) to self-manage vs any other solution where we (my mother or myself) need to be around to set things up for him.

Not sure how they are doing this exactly, if this is something Apple specifically enabled for healthcare or whatever, but its a fantastic experience.

Whatever solution they were using did have an "no I have an android and a 'use my computer' option" not sure what path they led down.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by Robotbeat on Friday August 28, 2020 @02:54PM (#24308645)

It’s a shame there isn’t seamless ability to Facetime with Android users like there is to make a voice call or text with them. We (read: tech community and/or society) should fix this. It’d be in society’s interest if a video call between android and Apple was as easy as a voice call is. (and I do think Facetime between Apple users is this easy... I sometimes use Facetime purely because my WiFi is a little better than my cell signal).

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by rrrrrrrrrrrryan on Friday August 28, 2020 @04:46PM (#24309743)

Google's built-in app (Duo) is made available on iOS, but Facetime isn't made available on Android.

Apple could easily open up Facetime and iMessage, and they've evaluated doing exactly this, but they ultimately determined that keeping these pieces of communication software exclusive to Apple devices is a big part of why the devices themselves are so sticky.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by Robotbeat on Saturday August 29, 2020 @01:54PM (#24318035)

This may be a spot where regulation would be to the advantage of the consumer.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by harshitaneja on Friday August 28, 2020 @09:12PM (#24312363)

WhatsApp is quite popular in my part of the world(India) and in europe. Casual video calls are never a concern.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by timvdalen on Friday August 28, 2020 @03:11PM (#24308810)

Isn't Google's Duo available for iOS?

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by Robotbeat on Friday August 28, 2020 @03:37PM (#24309066)

There are countless ways of making it happen by installing apps. And the user experience and integration has improved. But I mean out-of-the-box, universal functionality. So your 94 year old great grandparent can use it without anything.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by mjevans on Friday August 28, 2020 @03:40PM (#24309093)

It is, and it can work; but it also doesn't typically get the fully blessed experience a first party app does.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by trthomps on Friday August 28, 2020 @04:34PM (#24309638)

Duo integrates into the latest Android like FaceTime integrates into iOS, it would be nice if Apple made FaceTime / iMessage available on Android (lol, never gonna happen) or allowed Duo to integrate into iOS like 3rd party apps can in Android (like WhatsApp video calling does). Probably the biggest feature I miss from Android since moving to iOS.

Apple is probably doing more harm than good at this point for themselves by keeping iMessage/FaceTime so locked down to their hardware since their revenue stream is trending more towards services and less weighted in hardware.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by Thlom on Friday August 28, 2020 @06:19PM (#24310860)

I'm not sure if Apple ever explained why they didn't open up FaceTime? I seem to remember that when they presented it they said it would become an open standard?

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by toast0 on Friday August 28, 2020 @06:36PM (#24311067)

There have been persistent rumors of an issue with patents.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by Thlom on Friday August 28, 2020 @06:17PM (#24310833)

If they were texting the doctors messages would be blue if recipient had iMessage and green if normal SMS. Most likely how he found out he had an iPhone he could FaceTime.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by AdamJacobMuller on Friday August 28, 2020 @09:46PM (#24312567)

No, it happened via a webform. This wasn't an adhoc thing, this was something seamlessly integrated into their EHR system.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by ryandrake on Friday August 28, 2020 @04:56PM (#24309836)

I think this was your point but yea, I'd be more concerned that access to your doctor is contingent upon installing a specific proprietary software and accepting that software's terms of use. That's like a doctor saying you can only visit them if you drive there in a Chevrolet.

I can call my doctor using any phone I like, and E-mail her using any E-mail client I like. It is beyond unreasonable to require a patient to install specific client software in order to access care.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by forgotmysn on Friday August 28, 2020 @03:18PM (#24308887)

medical is a little different because those comms tools need to be HIPPA-compliant

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by Geezus_42 on Friday August 28, 2020 @01:17PM (#24307426)

Working for a company that deals with security, I have definitely run into customers that would think I was crazy if I asked them to use anything other than Zoom or Webex. Some are even limited to webex only.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by TeMPOraL on Friday August 28, 2020 @01:22PM (#24307483)

It goes in many combinations. Where I work now, it's Teams internally and Webex externally, with Zoom being explicitly banned, with at least two strongly worded e-mails reminding us to make it double plus sure we don't have the Zoom client installed.

At the same time, outside of work, I was videocalling people on Skype, and my wife had classes delivered via Zoom.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by zelphirkalt on Friday August 28, 2020 @02:03PM (#24308056)

Not sure what' worse, Zoom or Teams. Seems like "pick your poison". A coworker once looked at Teams console. I had logged over 700 errors. Often we cannot hear people, although their tech is completely fine. It's just Teams being bug ridden and excluding people.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by hirako2000 on Friday August 28, 2020 @02:40PM (#24308492)

Seamless integration with office360, with that they can afford to have issues.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by TeMPOraL on Friday August 28, 2020 @03:12PM (#24308826)

Not just that - in general, Zoom is just a videochat; Teams is an office productivity tool. It's pretty good at its function (I'm using it at work and I don't really have much to complain about, except the weird handling of code blocks in chat).

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by nicoburns on Friday August 28, 2020 @02:38PM (#24308460)

From reports in my circles, Teams is definitely worse. Most people i know seem fine with Zoom, but Teams seems universally hated.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by TuringNYC on Friday August 28, 2020 @01:50PM (#24307842)

Really? If you want to one-click-add a Zoom meeting to your Google calendar, Zoom requires read history to your full Google Calendar (including all history!) That seems incredibly intrusive.

How do corporations even allow access for this particular features?

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by zelphirkalt on Friday August 28, 2020 @02:00PM (#24308020)

Most people in companies are not IT people or IT security people. The ones raising concerns are often only heard, when it is too late. How often have I heard silly arguments against safer tech like: "The people are not IT people, they want something simple!"

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by kiwijamo on Saturday August 29, 2020 @12:17AM (#24313466)

This is possibly so Zoom can show other Zoom meetings you have been invited to. This is a useful feature as it means I can directly join a Zoom meeting without having to go through the Calendar.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by dahfizz on Friday August 28, 2020 @02:05PM (#24308081)

What about Google meet? It has the same security regulations as the rest of their enterprise software.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by lima on Friday August 28, 2020 @01:09PM (#24307326)

Even WebEx is still around and, ironically, works much better in a browser than Zoom.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by reaperducer on Friday August 28, 2020 @03:17PM (#24308868)

Even WebEx is still around and, ironically, works much better in a browser than Zoom.

I had a videoconference with some Apple people this month, and they were all on WebEx.

Maybe there's a reason. I couldn't tell you. My company is a hodgepodge of Zoom, Teams, BlueJeans, and who knows what else.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by Geezus_42 on Friday August 28, 2020 @01:16PM (#24307417)

New webex sucks for remote support. It forces me to re-request control every time I paste something. Yes I could manually type everything out but that is a pita when dealing with long Linux commands pulled from documentation.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by dllthomas on Friday August 28, 2020 @03:14PM (#24308841)

Is it every time you paste something, or every time you leave the program and focus on another to copy something?

If the latter, and you're using X, it should be possible to write a program that takes the selection buffer and provides a different response to each SelectionRequest in turn, letting you walk through a script pasting a command at a time without having to leave the current window. I don't know whether such a thing already exists.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by GloriousKoji on Friday August 28, 2020 @01:42PM (#24307733)

Also the random hot keys webex picks up. All too often i'll mute myself instead of escape out of edit mode in vi.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by youeseh on Friday August 28, 2020 @12:46PM (#24307032)

For those that haven't tried Jitsi - my friends and I catch up on it almost daily. It is awesome.

The phone app is great too. You can setup a room that people can jump in and out of, which is pretty convenient.

If you're looking for that office feel for your small team, then Jitsi might be worth a shot.

And, I think you can host your own server if you'd like to!

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by vz8 on Friday August 28, 2020 @12:52PM (#24307097)

We've tried Jitsi multiple times (as recently as a month ago) and the experience has been uniformly bad at anything beyond a handful of people. When we scaled to > 20 it was completely unusable (feedback / echos, delays, stuttering, dropouts, you name it).

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by nessunodoro on Friday August 28, 2020 @01:50PM (#24307835)

Were you self-hosting, or using the free service? If self-hosting, I'm curious what resources you were devoting to your VPS, and which hosting provider?

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by boudin on Friday August 28, 2020 @01:13PM (#24307379)

Was it with a self-hosted version or the meet.jit.si public instance? Around 20 we had the same problem on the public instances but I wonder how much is server side or limitation on the client side. It also definitely worked better in Chrome, it seems that the Firefox situation is much better now though. On Safari echo cancellation was just not working.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by freeone3000 on Friday August 28, 2020 @01:01PM (#24307213)

Jitsi makes one of my friend's MacBooks fan too loud so we can't use it.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by youeseh on Friday August 28, 2020 @06:47PM (#24311202)

Perhaps your friend would benefit from the phone app. I use it on an old iPhone SE and it works for hours without issue.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by choward on Friday August 28, 2020 @02:46PM (#24308558)

I know it's not ideal and not everyone has one, but couldn't your friend wear a headset so the microphone isn't right next to the fans?

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by reaperducer on Friday August 28, 2020 @03:19PM (#24308895)

The problem isn't the user, it's the software.

I'm no Zoom fan, but in the Zoom meeting I had this morning with 38 people my 2015 MacBook Pro's processor peaked at 11%.

Zoom knows how to do something better than the other companies. They really need to catch up.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by sukilot on Friday August 28, 2020 @03:58PM (#24309271)

Would you say the same if the user was compiling software or rendering video?if your computer fan is interfering with audio, that's an audio setup problem not a software problem.

Wasting CPU/heat is a different problem.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by freeone3000 on Friday August 28, 2020 @11:55PM (#24313321)

Oh, no! She just doesn't use any software that makes the fan come on. Zoom doesn't, teams doesn't, jitsi somehow does.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by cwhiz on Friday August 28, 2020 @11:34PM (#24313198)

Buy new headset vs install other free software.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by thechao on Friday August 28, 2020 @12:51PM (#24307080)

Have you used Lifesize? I'm not fond of either Hangouts or Zoom.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by youeseh on Saturday August 29, 2020 @11:46AM (#24316882)

I have not tried Lifesize.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by tyingq on Friday August 28, 2020 @01:55PM (#24307928)

Microsoft Teams has improved quite a bit since the pandemic started also. They added things that were missing, like a tile view (max 9), raise your hand, and blurred or custom backgrounds.

Zoom is still better, but Teams now seems "good enough" to me.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by kiwijamo on Saturday August 29, 2020 @12:18AM (#24313470)

Max 9?! Zoom can do 25 without breaking a sweat.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by briffle on Friday August 28, 2020 @01:07PM (#24307295)

Yeah, it used to be (a year or two back) GotoMeeting and Webex were the 'big 2' and now, they hardly get mentioned.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by MiroF on Friday August 28, 2020 @01:14PM (#24307390)

Zoom has been the major player in Uni for the last 2-3 years I would say.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by thebean11 on Friday August 28, 2020 @02:51PM (#24308611)

Yeah, when Zoom went down the other day at work we just used the Google Meet link directly from the gcal invites.

Like any mission critical infrastructure, it's up to organizations to have some redundancy. Nothing new.

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Re:Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern by 0xdeadb00f on Saturday August 29, 2020 @08:35PM (#24320408)

technically superior? I find it quite limiting and bare as an end user.

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