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Whether you reside in the same city or live thousands of miles away, video calls are the best way to stay connected with your loved ones. When the world shut down in 2020, video calls allowed people to see their family members, be virtually present on special occasions, and work from their homes.
Social messaging platforms allow the freedom to hop in and out of calls, text anyone globally, and send private media on various channels. Businesses have adopted practices using these platforms to connect socially, and even everyday users may already use several social apps on their phones. However, depending on your goals, you may be looking for secure and confidential texting apps while still offering a seamless experience with video calls is challenging to find.
Best free apps for video calling in 2024
Don't miss any precious moment with these video calling apps on your phone and desktop
Although in-person interactions remain superior to virtual ones, it's not always feasible. Most users prefer video calling apps on their top Android phones to stay in touch with long-distance relatives and friends. It's also a practical solution for managing and communicating with team members from several regions worldwide.
Last year, Google announced a feature for Meet called Companion mode, which was intended to make it easier to access interactive features in a call via a second screen. Now, you can actually use it. When taking a meeting on the web, you can use a Nest Hub Max or dedicated Google Meet hardware for Companion mode.
Google Meet is raising its participant limit to an insane 500 people
'Insane' as in you'd be insane to make that many people come on a call at once
Communicating directives across a small-to-medium-sized company or a specific division can get tricky sometimes. For the times a video conference is called for, one may need to resort to some sort of closed-circuit satellite setup. Or, they could just count on Google Meet.
Zoom brings 'mute' to your eyeballs with video feed blocking
So you can stop seeing that one coworker's ironic coffee mugs
Virtual meetings over Zoom have become all too popular over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, and they're potentially going to be a big part of life going forward. Already supporting virtual meetings with up to 100 people, Zoom gets constantly updated with new features. Now the Zoom app is getting another feature drop with a handful of quality-of-life improvements that aim to make it a little more enjoyable to use.
Google Duo turns five, and it might even turn six before Google kills it
It's the only video calling app I use
Google Duo turns five years old today, and in that time, it's become one of the best video calling apps around despite fierce competition. So to celebrate its anniversary, let's take a look at what makes Duo so special.
I used AR to give my uncle remote tech support, and it actually worked
Finally, you can help your family fix their tech long before coming home for the holidays
Sometimes, remote tech support involves more than just taking over your parents' computer using TeamViewer and co, like when the laptop just won't turn on or when the TV doesn't automatically default to the right HDMI input. That's where video calls and complicated instructions come in. "Hit this button. No, the other one. What do you mean it didn't turn on?" or "Plug in the cable. In the connector on the left, with the square plug. No, no, not this one!" are just a few conversations too many of us have probably had in their lives, these days more than ever.
Color in a sledding penguin with new Google Duo doodle drawings
Plus, become a reindeer or tree with new holiday-themed face filters
Those video chats with your kids and their friends or relatives — via your phone or tablet, of course — are about to get plenty more festive with new AR face filters and some new color-in drawings to doodle on. The new doodle-able drawings are courtesy of Google Duo's relatively new family mode where the drawer can create works of art and the recipient can watch as they see it come to fruition, live on the line.
Google starts rolling out two helpful new Meet features
Say hello to new layout options and bokeh-style background blur
In an effort to slice off a larger piece of the video conferencing pie, Google has been dedicating a lot of resources to Meet lately. The service started showing up in Gmail last month (here's how to turn it off), and Google said that a bunch of new features would be coming later this year. Now it looks like two of those additions are showing up — one ahead of schedule.
We've been using video calls more than ever in the past few months, and probably will continue to for the foreseeable future. It's tough not being able to travel to see your loved ones, but Google is making things a bit easier by announcing beta Android TV support for its Duo video calling service.
Google Meet adds baked-in Chromecast functionality for chatting on the big screen
Now your office meeting can look like a workplace sitcom
Here's why you should use Google Duo for your video calls instead of Zoom
At least Google's got one messaging app figured out
While Zoom may be the defacto video calling and conferencing app of 2020, many of us are probably using it more out of convenience than anything else. And while video calling and conferencing are two distinctly different things—a set time and place call-in meeting versus a often on-the-fly call-out chat—the lines between the two are increasingly blurred with so many of us working from home.
Google Duo on Android expands group calls to 32 participants
For a better, deeper, and more varied cacophony
The coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent quarantine it caused have made video calling services a mainstay of every household. While Zoom's popularity has skyrocketed, other services have done their best to catch up. Google's Duo added more features than we can count over the past few months, and upped the group call limit from 8 to 12 in March. That capacity has now been increased again to 32.
Google Duo support for 32-person calls is now live in Chrome
Over twice as many people as the previous limit
Google has made good on its earlier promise to expand the number of participants in Duo video calls. Support for up to 32-person calls is now rolling out for Duo on Chrome, ramping up the platform's ability to scale to compete with Zoom calls.
Duo is one of Google's best products, because it does exactly what it advertises — cross-platform video calls — without any added fuss or complications. Last month, Google increased Duo's maximum participant count for group calls to 12 people, and now the company has a few more changes in the works.
Plenty of Fish adds video chat so you can keep dating during social isolation
We only lose when we stop trying
As modern society rapidly prepares for what will become one of the loneliest times we will likely ever know, it doesn't mean singles have to be stuck in limbo until things return to normal. Dating service Plenty of Fish is launching a new video streaming feature that will make it easier for potential dates to meet virtually without abandoning the practice of social distancing for an IRL meeting.
It looks like Google Duo's getting ready to transcribe audio and video messages
At least, according to a leaked screenshot
Google is on a rampage to transcribe anything that generates speech on its Android platform in real-time. For most Android phones, users can transcribe voice memos with Live Transcribe. Pixels, though, can get system-wide transcription with Live Caption. So, where's the next step forward? Maybe it's with Duo messages.
The renaissance of mobile room-based video chat applications has largely passed, with even Facebook deciding their clone didn't need to stick around. One of the original players, Houseparty, has managed to continue running. In fact, today the app was acquired by video game giant Epic Games.
Usually, Google bundles up new features in big app updates that you can sideload, but it's increasingly common for new features to just show up after a server-side switch gets flipped. That's the case today with Duo. The way you select contacts is different, and you can do different things with them.