Alternatives to Hangouts for all platforms with any license

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Hangouts Comments

use it all the time

Comment by rondapuck1206
about Hangouts and Skype · Apr 2016 · Helpful Not helpful 2 Helpful Report as spam

i've been using hangout for a while now and has proven to so much faster and better that skype. I honestly wouldn't go back to use skype, this one is faster and easier so i recommend this one.

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great

Comment by louisbeckler784
about Hangouts · Aug 2016 · Helpful Not helpful Report as spam

i think this is great for chat and also video chat, it's very simple and works great when you need to contact somone outside the country also

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Hangouts

Comment by mimanderson
about Hangouts · Jul 2016 · Helpful Not helpful Report as spam

I'm trying to verify, if to use Hangouts video chat on an iOS, do you have to have a gmail account?

thanks!

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Nice, but could do better

Comment by DamianN
about Hangouts · Mar 2015 · Helpful Not helpful Report as spam

Very fast at sending and receiving messages, especially on mobile. I get my messages faster here than on other IM apps such as Whatsapp and Viber. Still some improvements to be done, like sometimes messages sent on a desktop don't get on the mobile version, which has caused me some problems in the past.

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Pidgin absolutely is an alternative to google talk

Comment by Awesome
about Hangouts and Jitsi, Miranda IM, Adium · Oct 2012 · Helpful Not helpful Report as spam

Pidgin has an expansive plug-in ecosystem. Please un-remove it (add it back) as an alternative

Google Talk [ now Small Hangouts iconHangouts ]

needs:

Small Pidgin iconPidgin

and by extension
Small Adium iconAdium

the same claims apply to miranda
Small Miranda IM iconMiranda IM

Jitsi provides audio chat SIP/Jingle, and text chat XMPP, SIMPLE
Small Jitsi iconJitsi

Jitsi with 35 votes ought not be buried under show all.

[Edited by Venom88, November 12]

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Visuex · Apr 2013

Pidgin is NOT an alternative. Google Talk is a Network/Protocol...Pidgin utilizes multiple networks/protocols but it does NOT have its own. So it is not the same thing and thus is not an alternative.

joshhsoj1902 · Jun 2013

Google Talk is also an application.

I would argue that Google Talk is just the application front end to the standard Jabber protocol.

Visuex · Mar 2014

but joshhsoj1902 Google Talk doesn't use just the standard Jabber protocol that is why there is a specific entry in Pidgin to work with it rather than just using the XMPP option. However, I do understand what you mean and it is a good point.

tuuli85 · Jul 2015

Google Talk did use XMPP but Hangouts doesn't. I'm not sure if they still have the XMPP gateway to the new, proprietary network but yeah...

Visuex · Jul 2015

@tuuli85 I didn't claim that they didn't use XMPP, I stated that their implementation of XMPP is not standard. While Google Hangouts doesn't use XMPP as the main protocol it is still utilized for use in Pidgin.

I've actually changed my opinion of this topic actually, I think Pidgin is still not a direct alternative to Hangouts I'd be totally fine with claiming that it was for Google Talk. Hangouts though is 99% known for video which Pidgin is not for that usage.