They removed the ability to install the dedicated chat app and moved it all into the Gmail app. Infuriating. Oh, and it opens all links on the built-in chrome browser instead of respecting your default browser settings. There is no option to change the behavior.

> They removed the ability to install the dedicated chat app and moved it all into the Gmail app.

The first part of it is not true (but the second part is true, in that you can access chats from Gmail as well).

I just checked, and Google Chat exists as a separate app on iOS, Android, and web (chat.google.com). Even though the web version redirects to a gmail url (mail.google.com/chat), it is still a separate web version, not embedded into gmail. The only thing it shares with gmail is its subdomain, the page itself has zero mention of gmail or any gmail-related functionality.

>I just checked, and Google Chat exists as a separate app on iOS

I used to have this app installed, then one day it started telling me I had to use the GMail app for chat instead.

I wouldn't be surprised to hear that they were rolling the out the migration to accounts incrementally, or they've reversed course. But I deleted the google chat app because it wouldn't let me use google chat.

The separate chat app still exists (at least on Android). I have it, because I often like to copy and paste between them.