- Google Hangouts App Store
- Free Hangouts App For Laptop
- Hangouts App Download For Android
- Google Hangouts Mac
- Google Hangouts Download For Mac
Google recently launched its own dedicated website for Hangouts, a service that originated in the Google+ social network. Notable for allowing group chats for up to ten people, Hangouts has evolved into an all-around communication platform for Google users.
I searched the App Store for Google Hangouts and got several apps listed (I did not check which were iOS or Max OS types) More recently my Google Account in Messages has changed to using this set up (Despite me changing it back). It is not using SSL at all (Despite that being set at Google). It is no longer using the talk.google.com server.
- Use Hangouts to keep in touch. Message contacts, start free video or voice calls, and hop on a conversation with one person or a group. Include all your contacts with group chats for up to 150 people. Say more with status messages, photos, videos, maps, emoji, stickers, and animated GIFs. Turn any conversation into a free group video call with up to 10 contacts.
- Google Hangouts is a Google Chrome add-on that seamlessly integrates with your browser and offers support for using the Hangouts service without having to navigate between various tabs. Expand your Google Chrome capabilities to improve your Hangouts experience. Google Hangouts integrates.
- Use Hangouts to keep in touch. Message contacts, start free video or voice calls, and hop on a conversation with one person or a group. Include all your contacts with group chats for up to 150 people. Say more with status messages, photos, videos, maps, emoji, stickers, and animated GIFs. Turn any conversation into a free group video call with up to 10 contacts. Call any phone.
Meanwhile, Facebook has built up its chatting service over the years to become a one stop shop for sending messages, photos, videos, emoticons and even money. It controversially split Messenger from the main Facebook app and turned it into something that now proudly stands on its own.
Now that both have their own websites, it seems like a good time to pit the two head to head and determine which site is the best communication tool overall.
Google Hangouts Dominates Video Calling
The biggest allure to Google Hangouts has not only been group video conferencing, but the fact that Hangouts does it so well. There’s nothing easy about accomplishing a multi-party video call because it requires a lot of bandwidth and of course the patience to deal with everyone trying to talk at once.
Fortunately, Google Hangouts has a terrific trick in which it detects the person who is currently talking and switches the main video feed to that person. Then everyone else listening gets relegated down to thumbnail position until someone new starts talking.
Facebook has never been great at video calls and still isn’t. It only allows for one-on-one video calling and it’s always a buggy or plain mediocre experience in one way or another. Even worse, messenger.com doesn’t support video calls for whatever reason. You can only video call from Facebook’s main website or using the Messenger mobile apps.
Google Hangouts even features apps that you can install to further customize the video call. You can install Draw, for instance, to doodle and sketch on screen. You can also click YouTube to share videos and have the entire party watch them in sync.
If you’re mainly looking for the best video conferencing service, look no longer. Hangouts is one of the best you’ll find on the Internet for free.
Facebook Messenger Dominates Everything Else
While Facebook Messenger is less than adequate for video calling (and doesn’t even support it at all on the web), it excels in pretty much every other aspect. You can start group conversations with friends, give those conversations titles and share photos, videos and other links.
Messenger even has its own plethora of stickers you can send, which go beyond the familiar emojis. Stickers are larger and have different theme packs that you can download for free to enlarge your library. They cover the whole gamut of emotions plus just add a bit more personality to the conversation.
Like Hangouts, you can place audio calls with Messenger. Unfortunately, this isn’t supported on the Messenger website either. However, Hangouts charges $0.10 per call because it places an actual phone call, while Messenger is totally free because it uses audio calling. It about breaks even this way with price versus availability, if you ask me.
One final interesting feature of Messenger is that you can now send money to friends pretty quickly. Type in the amount of money you want to send, add your debit card (Messenger will remember it for next time) and you just paid back your friend for that slice of pizza and beer he bought you. It’s a super convenient way to send and receive cash over the Internet.
Note: Sending money with Messenger currently only works for Facebook users in the U.S.The most important part of Messenger is arguably that it’s a Facebook product, which means you have access to nearly 1.5 billion active users. It’s easy to message someone, video call them or send them money because odds are almost everyone you know has a Facebook account. This isn’t a feature of Messenger itself, but the ecosystem does come as a perk.
The Verdict: Facebook Messenger… Usually
Facebook Messenger wins based on the number of different features and tools available for communicating, plus of course the number of people who actively use it. There’s no beating that. However, if you place more video calls than you send standard messages, you’re probably better off using Google Hangouts. It’s difficult to pick a true winner here because it really depends on a case by case basis, but overall Messenger receives the most points.
The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.Also See#facebook #google
Google Hangouts App Store
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It's estimated that people share more than 700 billion photos per year on Facebook.
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I love Google+ Hangouts, though I mostly use it for chat and Google Voice calls, it’s still one of the most used utilities I have, maybe after email.
I suspect the problem that I face with it, is the same as many of you, who may have a personal Gmail, but also, a secondary, or a Google Apps email. Your contacts are different in those accounts, but you want to be able to access all your contacts via the Hangouts.
The issue isn’t that you can’t do it, as a matter of fact there are multiple ways of doing it, which I’ll share briefly, but I won’t linger on those, as I opted to tell you exactly about the most efficient way that I found.
- The first method is Google’s native way, of logging into multiple accounts within the same browser. Once you do, you will end up with multiple tabs on your browser, each of which belongs to one of your accounts, and has its own Hangouts module. The main problem with this is that you’re always fumbling around between your dozens of already open tabs to go back to one of your gmail accounts where a hangout chat is happening. You can always “Pop-out” these chats, but then you’re stuck with these chats being stuck behind all your other windows. This is probably the best and easiest method, if you don’t want to spend the time to use other methods.
- The second method is for Mac users only, though, in essence, it ends up still being a Browser based solution, though, with this method, your gmail accounts will be separated from your other browsing content. You can do this by essentially creating an app that only runs Gmail. There is a small you can download an app, to create the app. It sounds kind of funny, but that’s exactly what it does: It’s FluidApp. It is free, and can add a couple additional features for $4.99. I haven’t had the need to upgrade. Perhaps I’ll write another post on how to setup FluidApp to run your Gmail account. For now, I’ll leave it at that.
The downside of the FluidApp is the same as the browser, but it has a bit of a separation between the two. - The final method which I implemented on my system today, and works amazing, is the following:
In Summary: This assumes you’re using Google Chrome: Create a new Google Chrome User for each Gmail account you have, for which you want a new Hangout module, then install the Google Hangouts Extension on each of the profiles. Now sign in to your different accounts on each of the profiles, and launch the Hangouts extension. You will now end up with 2 different Hangouts instances, both belonging to each of your Gmail accounts.
The Details:
First things first: Create a new Google Chrome Profile for each of your Hangout accounts. Navigate to Tools -> Settings and then select “Add New User”. Select an Avatar, and click ok.
Add New Chrome User
Free Hangouts App For Laptop
Now install the Hangouts extension> on each of these profiles:
Hangouts App Download For Android
Once installed, you will see the icon for Hangouts on the top right of your browser.
Now, all you have to do is Launch your Google Chrome profiles. From your Dock, right click on the Google Chrome icon, and select the profiles one after the other. (Under Users)
A new browser window will open for each of the profiles. The good news is that you don’t need to keep a browser window open. You just need the browser window to launch the Hangouts module (by clicking on the extension button), then you can close it.
At this point, you’re all set. You should see 2 hangout modules tucked away on the bottom right of your screen, and can pop up when you need them, and they’re never behind other windows when you need them. It’ll look something like this:
Google Hangouts Mac
View of both chat modules on the bottom of the screen
Google Hangouts Download For Mac
I hope you found this tip to be useful. The article and explanation seems much more convoluted than it actually is. Try it, and post any questions in the comments.