Free Google Meet For Public As An Alternative To Zoom

Google is now opening up the free Google Meet video conferencing service for public use, instead of just offering it to enterprise and education customers. Everybody can fully enjoy this video conferencing service once they have created a Google account for having free meetings of up to 100 people that can last any amount of time. However, the meeting time limit may be restricted to 60 minutes after September 30th 2020.

Google Meet Security 

In order to enhance the security of video conferencing of Google Meet, users are not able to just click a link and join a meeting. They are required to log-in the google account. Therefore, the meetings can be fully controlled by their hosts, and reduce the possibility of video conference bombing. Some safety measures that have to know when using the Google Meet, people not explicitly added to a meeting via a calendar invite will be automatically entered into a green room when they try to join a meeting, and only be let in when approved by the host.

Here’s a few of the default-on security measures listed by Google:
• A strong set of host controls such as the ability to admit or deny entry to a meeting, and mute or remove participants, if needed.
• No anonymous users (i.e., without a Google Account) can join meetings created by individual accounts. Meet meeting codes are complex by default and therefore resilient to brute-force “guessing.”
• Meet video meetings are encrypted in transit, and all recordings stored in Google Drive are encrypted in transit and at rest.
• No plugins required to use Meet on the web. It works entirely in Chrome and other modern browsers, so it’s less vulnerable to security threats.
• Dedicated Google Meet apps in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
• Meet users can enroll their account in Google’s Advanced Protection Program – Google’s strongest protections available against phishing and account hijacking.
• Google Cloud undergoes regular rigorous security and privacy audits for all its services.
• Meet data is not used for advertising, and Google doesn’t sell your data to third parties.

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What’s new in Google Meet?

Google says that the product of Hangouts Video chat will be transitioned to Google Meet over time, so that there is only one platform for both consumers and enterprise customers. Google Meet recently updated to support “Gallery view” to put all participants in a single grid that Zoom largely popularized. This new function is now available in apps on mobile platforms and inside browsers on the desktop.

Google is also regularly updating their web-first apps, such as G Suite and its related products – making them more manageable than native Windows or MacOS apps. However, the approach can introduce hassles like losing your meeting in a sea of tabs or accidentally exiting out of it.
While still providing current G Suite customers with free access to Meet through September 30th, 2020, Google is introducing a new tier for G Suite called “G Suite Essentials”, which includes Meet and also Google Drive.

So now G Suite and regular Gmail users can enjoy the integration of Meet within Gmail. Just like how Microsoft has influenced people to adopt Teams with its Office dominance, Google is promoting its integrated video conferencing app with Gmail.