Hangouts

Among my favorite chat clients, it’s really a shame that google is going to discontinue it at the end of 2021.

It was the easiest way to sync messages across all operating systems and mobile devices.

lets me make free calls in Canada and USA. Voice quality was more than i expected and also lets make conference calls.

Google Hangouts is suddenly consuming 7 MB per day over mobile connection. To send a few plain text messages? It's ridiculous. I turned off the "Improve Hangouts" option but it didn't help.

[Edited by endolith, March 05]

[Edited by endolith, July 16]

This doesn't seem to happen anymore, but it's a bit dirty that Google embraced, extended and extinguished other chat protocols like AIM. It used to use an open-source protocol but then Google decided the walled garden would make them more money? Sigh.

One of many chat tools

I still use hangouts, but I find it severely lacking in several aspects:

• no dark mode
• sub-par emojis and stickers
• no search function for emoji's
• no GIF functionality
• no file transfer functionality
• heavily compresses/resizes JPG
• used to support phone SMS, but that functionality has since been dropped. (App still notifies me on non-SMS tablet devices).
• should be merged or integrated with Google Voice. Google voice will send text and voicemail to hangouts, but you cannot use hangouts to send text or call using google voice. You can use the Hangouts Dialer (now abandonware) app to call using google voice, but that is yet another app you have to install.

Now that they support multiple account video calling.

Simply works - on desktop in browser and on mobile phone. No chat however.