Free software projects
See projects.
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
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:
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:
ConferenceMe
Pros:
Cons:
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.