Tired of Zoom? Use Jitsi Meet Instead!

With the pandemic, we’ve all been spending a lot more time on video calls instead of what we now realize as the privilege of meeting in person!

This shift has meant that we’ve grown incredibly dependent on video call platforms such as Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Skype. However, we have also grown all-too-familiar with their flaws and inconveniences, such as time limits, paid or missing features, and compatibility issues.

Privacy Concerns

Considering how much time we spend on these platforms and the sensitive conversations we have, from job interviews to calls with loved ones, we really need to think about the privacy of these platforms. You need to know that many of these popular chat platforms amass heaps of data about the content of your calls and everyone in those calls!

Zoom, for example, collects your contacts, calendar integrations, device hardware and software information, connection identifiers including your IP address, and much more. What’s most invasive is that Zoom tracks all your meeting, webinar, and messaging content and context, meaning they have your audio, video, text messages, and everything else you do on their platform!

As terrifying as Zoombombing may be, your privacy is already compromised to Zoom and third-parties who can freely look into what you are doing in-call.

The Solution

The best video call platform is Jitsi Meet, an open-source platform with great free features and privacy! Getting started with Jitsi is a breeze since it works on the web in-browser without the need to install an app. Plus, Jitsi does not require an account to join or even create a meeting.

To start a video call, all you have to do is create a custom URL and send it to your attendees! For added privacy, you can add a password and enable the lobby/waiting room.

Jitsi’s end-to-end encryption can be easily enabled with a switch as opposed to other platforms that may require you to navigate a convoluted map of settings to enable end-to-end encryption or that don’t support it in web or at all! Note that Jitsi also collects some data such as connection information and, temporarily, your messaging and recordings in-call. However, Jitsi is much less invasive than the alternatives and does not use your data for marketing purposes or sell it to third parties.

Jitsi includes all the features you expect from a video calling platform, including raise/lower hand, emoji reactions, screen-sharing, breakout rooms, and polls. But Jitsi goes above and beyond by including many more features not present in other platforms! To start, Jitsi has no meeting time limit and actually works in Firefox!

Here are some of my favourite features:

• Connection quality indicator to evaluate whether participants might experience issues
• Performance settings to balance between call performance and quality
• Simultaneous screen-sharing by multiple participants
• Speaker stats to see for how long each participant spoke

All in all, Jitsi Meet is the platform to choose for video calls! Jitsi Meet is easy to use, feature-packed, and privacy-respecting.