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Does Google hate desktop users? The mess that is Google Hangouts (previously known as Google Talk) kind of suggests they do. It took someone outside Google hacking away at CSS to finally offer a decent chat experience for Windows, Mac and Linux users – and you can give it a shot right now if you’re a Chrome user.
Chat shouldn’t be complicated, and Google seems to know this…on mobile. Hangouts for Android is the best all-in-one messaging appThe Best All-in-One Messaging & Calling App for Android: Google HangoutsThe Best All-in-One Messaging & Calling App for Android: Google HangoutsWhat if there was one app that could do it all? Meet Google Hangouts for Android.Read More for that platform, and the iOS version is also straightforward. Open the app; start chatting.
How is it possible Google Hangouts is simultaneously the best mobile and worst desktop app?
— Pete Pachal (@petepachal) July 19, 2015
On the desktop…not so much. Hangouts is designed on these platforms to be second fiddle to something, as Michal Csanaky outlined:
Currently you can access the chat either as a secondary feature in Gmail, or install the Hangouts extension where, similarly as in Gmail, you constantly keep hiding and resizing the chat windows all over your screen.
Neither are great options, so Csanaky made his own alternative version of Hangouts – one that functions more like the mobile versions Google offers. The result, Common Hangouts is what Google should have offered all along
Here you can see all of your conversations, in the same place, without cluttering up Gmail or anything else. Windows don’t pop up over your inbox or your operating system – they’re continued in one tab. It just works.
We can’t help but ask: why did a third party designer have to hack this together, instead of Google offering it?
What Common Hangouts Offers
Common Hangouts, offered as a Chrome extension, is basically a CSS hack that gives you a window with Hangouts and only Hangouts – no Gmail or Google Plus in the background. This is going to be better for many users for a variety of reasons:
- Unlike using Hangouts in Gmail, your chats are the primary focus – not the inevitable distraction of email.
- Unlike the Hangouts extension for Chrome, windows don’t pop up over your work in other programs – everything stays in one place.
- The design is cleaned up quite a bit, in a way that’s easy on the eyes and consistent.
I’m not alone in saying this.
Google Hangouts are near impossible for anything at work, Common Hangouts changes that — Medium http://t.co/8SxJoj8AFM
— Stephen O'Grady (@orishnal) July 21, 2015
Which brings up a relevant question: what is Google offering instead?
What Google Offers
Google’s ongoing mission to unnecessarily complicate our lives with conflicting products means that there are two different Hangouts options for desktop users outside of Gmail. Both aren’t “desktop clients” so much as Chrome-only add-ons, and if you’re looking to add Hangouts to Chrome it’s going to be hard to tell the difference.
The Hangouts extension, which basically pulls your chats out of GmailHangouts Extension For Chrome Brings Conversations To Your DesktopHangouts Extension For Chrome Brings Conversations To Your DesktopUse Hangouts outside the browser. An overlooked Chrome extension from Google lets you chat without opening Gmail or Google+.Read More and into the rest of your desktop:
The Hangouts app, which (thankfully) puts everything in its own window.
At least, it does now – Google seems to change this one whenever they feel like it. At one point it re-created Facebook’s ‘Chat Heads’ featureHow To Get Facebook-Style Chat Heads For Hangouts In ChromeHow To Get Facebook-Style Chat Heads For Hangouts In ChromeHangouts is a wonderful cross-platform messaging and video chat app, but this newest release straight from Google improves upon the app by offering Facebook-style 'Chat Heads' on Chrome.Read More:
I actually kind of like the new approach of this app: it’s a single window where you can manage your conversations. But there are still some downsides: you can only see one conversation at a time, and the way in which it relates to Mac’s window manager is confusing to put it lightly.
I would love to use the Google Hangouts Chrome app on Mac for cross-device persistence, but the UI/UX is so bad. Needs a native app.
— Matt Banks (@mattbanks) June 26, 2014
I’m sure both of these approaches work very well on a ChromebookWhat Is A Chromebook? [MakeUseOf Explains]What Is A Chromebook? [MakeUseOf Explains]Everything is moving towards the web, which is now more commonly being dubbed “the cloud”. As such, your devices should probably be ready and well equipped to make full use of cloud services for your...Read More, but Google knows the vast majority of their users aren’t using ChromeOS. Why not offer a more functional version of Hangouts for them?
It Took an Outsider to Make Hangouts Usable
it's cool that google keeps making Hangouts for desktop worse and worse
— POE DAMERIN (@kernetin) May 23, 2015
Common Hangouts isn’t perfect. It’s currently only offered in Chrome, and Csanaky doesn’t really recommend anyone use it.
Even though it works perfectly with current Hangouts, I wouldn’t recommend to rely on the extension too much. Google will change just few things and it will get all broken.
So Google’s users just have to do what they’ve been doing for years: wait for Google to offer native desktop clients, and complain. Constantly.
Is it me, or is the new Google Voice integration with Hangouts (on desktop, not mobile) absolutely impossible to navigate?
— Jill E Duffy (@jilleduffy) June 17, 2015
Complain about Hangouts, or my article, in the comments below. While we’re at it, let’s talk about other worthwhile Hangouts apps for the desktop – if you know of any.
Explore more about: Google Chrome, Google Hangouts, Online Chat, Video Chat / Call.
Making a desktop client for Hangouts would be nice, but I personally am fine with using the many ways to use Hangouts that already exist. Using Hangouts in Gmail, going to hangouts.google.com, using the Hangouts extension as either a window or chat heads, or on my phone or tablet has worked completely fine with me. On my computers, I personally prefer the chat heads because they don't ever get in the way since they're just small circles on the side of my screen. Whenever I get a message, I can just click on it to open a little popup that looks just like the mobile app and, then click off to close it and continue working without switching windows. I suppose it would be nice to have a desktop app for some people, especially if they don't use Chrome, but I personally wouldn't use it because it would just be one more program to have open.
I would use hangouts in a New York minute if they would have a stand alone app for PC's and Macs. Right now, hangouts is completely useless as an extension to an 'only slightly better than IE' browser.
I'm glad some are at least trying to improve things even with Google keeping their heads up their asses about good and usable functioning programs.
I do use their IOS app and at least there is a few there that can manage to do things relatively properly. It just would be nice to have a native desktop app so everyone does not have to have another tab open or use a browser that fills your processor time up massively with copies of itself for each tab.
yup, it's complete shite still. YEEEEE!!!!! C'mon google?! I'd be happy with the good ol' google voice days... LOL!!
I am surprised that you like the Google hangouts app better. Having it all in one window is such a pain when the, now defunct chrome extension, adds the chats conveniently to the bottom of your desktop (every desktop). That is a better experience on every level. The all-in-one window is just horrible.
You can use BlueStacks on PC to run hangouts app in a Android emulator.
Bring back Gtalk! Hangouts is complete garbage! Stop making me use Chrome I don't like it!
common people?!?!
200MB ram only for a chat?!?
Also Gmail loaded takes 250MB ram
What a days.
5 years ago 10MB were more than enoughDude, just buy more ram. Its so cheap these days its more than comical to complain about.
so says id 10 t. what happens when you're on a platform that doesn't support more than 4 gig of ram and you need that for other purposes.... Oh I know your answer.. buy something else .. look dumba$$ suggesting someone buy something or anything when the real answer is to efficiently design a stand alone client around a protocol that can be commonly used is not a good answer and begs to be treated the way this message is treating you. If people LIKE YOU were to get behind the REAL answer for this stuff, we'd have less to complain about, but because your position in life, like much of those so called friends of yours is well off enough to buy the current cool thing, or to replace your hardware because its not faster, more spacious, or missing new fuctions.. we have to endure your stupidity with theirs.
What platform are you on that doesnt support more than 4gb of Ram? Windows 3.11? Sheesh. Get a grip psycho. It isnt unreasonable to ask people to try to stop using a potato in their attempt to fix a car.
You need to chill. People who have an x86 system really need to think about moving into this decade. Its not unreasonable to expect that. 64-bit systems are all you can find now and are dirt cheap.
You verbally accosting someone because they speak the truth and you just want to bully someone and make it look like you won because who cares on the internet is not right and you should feel ashamed of your self.
@Desdecardo .. (1) you obviously haven't run into situations where that's all a board supports, not necessarily 32 vs 64.
(2) taken *IN CONTEXT* its a direct reply to someone who is arrogant enough to think the answer is 'just buy more sh*t'.The real answer is to code efficiently.
The app is horrid but its all we have in some respects. Horrid, as was said in my other post, names aren't distinguishable. No 'user@' option, and no aliases. I've got one person with three different email addresses, each with their own gmail accounts, and they can only be reached at certain times through certain addresses, but because the standard chat keeps users conversation thread visible forever, unless you manually go through 'click, click click, archive' motions, so you end up with a list of garbage all the users, all the chats, and if you have two or more people with similar names, or like in my case, 1 person with 3 different addresses, then you're left to guess at which is which, which is a big no no! ALL of the garbage in chat is because of google's crap attention to the program.
They want to put themselves into the market, they want *everyone* to use their products so they have tracking abilities but then don't develop it beyond a basic pos interface .. that's on them, not me not the rest of the users.
While this app (css code or whatever) may give some relief where chat windows are concerned, it still does absolutely nothing for having multiple users with the same name in your chat list.
The only way of which to distinguish users is at the very beginning when *you* initiate a conversation with someone, and are searching ... it gives you their name and email address .. after that first message, after you've started, gone away and come back to your chats ... you have no way to distinguish one John Smith from another unless they have profile picks..
'ID 10 T' users are going to say 'well everyone should have a picture' and I'd equally come back with .. why? Why require something that not everyone wants? and then what? and then they can put any picture they want up there.. and you may not recognize that picture, I use pictures of my dogs ... doesn't mean anyone but me recognizes them, and I'm not chatting myself.. so... pictures, not the answer.
The real answer is that google has to come up with a real proper and open standard! And that standard has to include detail that apps outside of google and even within (as with talk & hangouts) will use and present that information when hit with an 'Info' request ... just like AIM did, just like Yahoo, and every client in the real world HAS DONE, day after day, since their inceptions.
Sometimes not everything about a 'thing' is broken, and you CAN incorporate the good parts of a thing with your re-written supposedly non-broken 'thing' (supposedly, because the moment your standard isn't right in all situations, part of it becomes broken yet again, and along comes someone else wishing you'd correct it)
Google needs to fix this.. they need to be motivated to do so, need to have reasons why they were wrong and forced into compliance with a standard others can agree on, and as it is right now, too many people still believe google can do no wrong.
Hi tech gurus,
I need some guidance Ive read the trail and thought Common Hangouts sounded good until I read the comment that it is not recommended by the designer ??
so what Extension do I use for a Webinar?
Google Hangout (by google)
One Click google hangout
or Common Hangoutsor something entirely different?
very confused :(
many thanksI hate the dependency on Chrome for both Google's and this third party one. I used FF primarily, but rarely use Chrome and have multiple extensions loaded. Each extension has at least one process allocated to it. To just have hangouts running all day, it loads about a dozen processes into memory - so roughly 12 chrome.exe's listed in Task Manager for an idling chat window.
There's now https://hangouts.google.com which is very similar to this addon...
I have the best experience using Gchat/Hangouts/Whatever on IM+ or in Thunderbird's chat module. I don't like Gmail on the web. It's sluggish and tends to get lost in all the other tabs I have open. I use IM+ on tablet-type devices and just sign in to chat on Thunderbird anyplace I have a real screen and keyboard.
I disabled Google Voice integration, even though I have a fully integrated Google Voice phone number. I don't want SMSes appearing in my chat interface. I'd rather redirect and respond to SMSes as E-mail. I really wish people would drop SMS in general. It's yet another message service that I don't want or need to monitor, yet people expect to use it for real time communication. Just like the Google IMs they could just as easily be sending.
I have no problem with Hangouts on Desktop the way it is.
Of course you have to switch to Chrome to use this anyway.
'At least, it does now – Google seems to change this one whenever they feel like it. At one point it re-created Facebook’s ‘Chat Heads’ feature:'
It still does? You can switch in the settings.
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