While Messages and RCS is how Google wants you to message friends, Google Chat also fits that role and the company today reminded us...

tl;dr: after pushing rcs so hard for years, killing hangouts well after forgetting about it, & hiding it from gmail, google now wants you to use its (and google allo’s) successor, google chat.

  • red@feddit.deEnglish
    7·
    1 year ago

    Seriously. I’m quite a Google maximalist (yea, I know, spare me) and a young-ish not-that-old IT nerd. But even I have lost track of which chat app is currently the supported one / the successor of all the dead ones, and how to get is / use it (well, particularly on the web). If I’m confused, I can’t imagine how it is for the average internet user or old people.

      • red@feddit.deEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        Absolutely. What I’m looking for is actually an Alternative to Skype on the Desktop, that is simple enough to use for my mother. Discord is too overloaded for her. Hangouts would have worked. Maybe Google Chat could fill the gap, I don’t even know what it can and can’t, despite relying Google products heavily. I literally gave up trying to follow their chat efforts years ago.

        • myxi@feddit.nlEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          Just so you know, there is a desktop client of Signal for all major systems:

          I haven’t used Skype, but depending on use case, Signal might work.

          • red@feddit.deEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            Hm, I think I knew that at some point…but didn’t know it could do videocalls. Thanks, might look into that.

      • myxi@feddit.nlEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        Zuckerberg can be an moron from a privacy perspective, but he sure does seem to respect stability.