Free software projects

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Videoconferencing

You must be wondering what tool you should use.
[TL;DR] Jitsi and BigBlueButton. Definitely not Zoom.

WebRTC is a project initiated by Google, standardized by W3C, that tried to allow real-time communication (RTC) directly in the browser, through JavaScript APIs. It allowed the first cross-browser video call in February 2013.

See also the Comparison of secure VoIP software on Wikipedia.

Jitsi

Pros:

• Perfect for video calls
• Free software
• No need to install anything if you have the right browser (not Safari)
• Can record calls (into DropBox)
• Can livestream (to YouTube, for example)
• It is supposedly easy to set up your own server (I didn’t try yet though)

Cons:

• Need to install the Jitsi app on smartphones
• For tablets, the Jitsi app is better although it works almost fully on Chrome
• No moderation: we can mute everyone but they can put back their mic
• (Can we share our screen on Firefox now? Or only Chrome?)
• WebRTC is not suitable for end-to-end encryption for more than 2 people (group conferencing), while Apple’s FaceTime is

Matrix / Riot

Pros:

• Free software
• End-to-end encryption by default! As of May 6, 2020

Cons:

• Have to create an account to try Riot.im

BigBlueButton

Pros:

• Perfect for lessons, conferences, reading groups
• Free software
• People can join a room with mic or listen-only
• There is a chat and collaborative note-taking
• Many moderation rights, many features, simple to use
• A pointer is available for highlighting the presenter’s slides
• The presenter or the audience can annotate the slides! And it can be part of the recording
• Recordings are amazing: we can click on a slide and the recording will jump to that slide

Cons:

• Some disconnections can happen
• Have your sysadmin install an instance (it’s nontrivial, I was told)
• Some people under Firefox couldn’t share their screen (it may be okay now)
• (I don’t know yet if it is secure in any way)

Zoom

Pros:

• Works well
• Can scale
• Can have several moderators that can mute everyone

Cons:

• Forbidden by CNRS, Inria, New York City, Taiwan
• It is possible to use the web version but Zoom won’t let you do this easily
• Two security flaws in 2019, one of which allowing an attacker to install a web server on your device.
• Proprietary
• A server costs 15 € a month? This can be in pros though. For something non-free, it is quite cheap.
• Terms of service are terrible. “The Ministry of Defense of the U.K. banned its use.” (Wikipedia)
• They are not E2E encrypted while they said they were
• “I’m okay with AES-128, but using ECB (electronic codebook) mode indicates that there is no one at the company who knows anything about cryptography.” - Bruce Schneier
• Some users’ Zoom video content was routed “mistakenly” to China, and some encryption keys are issued via Chinese servers, even for non-Chinese calls.

Hangouts / Meet

Pros:

• It actually works if you have the right browser

Cons:

• Proprietary (Google again?)
• Screen sharing can take time to load (in my case)

Discord

Pros:

• Best for gaming. Easy to broadcast the content of an application (game) with its own sound.

Cons:

• Proprietary
• Many settings, hard to find where is what
• Video works in group calls (no moderation)
• (Maybe) if someone wants to share their screen, they should have the desktop app
• On smartphone, it was not clear that my mic was turned on
• Terms of service may not be good

Scopia

Pros:

Cons:

• Does not work on Linux

ConferenceMe

Pros:

Cons:

• Only works on Windows

Linphone

Pros:

• Free software
• It implements SIP so we actually do not need both softwares just above

Cons:

• When I tried to use it on my phone, I tried to set the video and the application quit unexpectedly
• When I tried to use it on my tablet, it forced me to set the video and my modem rebooted unexpectedly. It happened twice.