Jitsi - My Favorite New Video Conferencing Software

Lockdown has changed everything about the way we work. In particular it has changed how we communicate.

Since we are now working from home, we have all become accustomed to using Zoom, Teams, Discord and a myriad of other video conferencing software.

I in particular really dislike many of these applications.

There's always some combination of things that make them terrible to use. In some instances you need login details, in other cases your privacy is being compromised and yet in other cases you have to download additional plugins which you just don't want.

Experience Building for the Internet

I believe in the web and it's utility. Having worked a web developer and made a living from the internet I can truly appreciate why it is so powerful. My experience has come from years of producing software, using it and trying to make it more user friendly.

The most important thing that I've learned from these experiences is that Open Source is almost always better that proprietary software. The reason for this is a simple one - corporations always have some agenda that compromises the value of the software in a significant way.

Hence Open Source software is usually better. It's sometimes not the most user friendly or intuitive - but it's almost always better from a value perspective.

Jitsi is case in point.

I've been trying it out recently and I was blown away by how it covers all of the bases. It's video conferencing done right.

It's in the browser, there's no plugins or apps that need to be downloaded, it's intuitive and it's fast.

I am so impressed with the overall features, functional and user interface. It's hard to believe that this is actually open source.

Things to love about Jitsi

1 Operational Immediately

Right from the get-go you can create a meeting from the homepage https://meet.jit.si/ and start conversing with people. No need to figure things out, just type in a unique meeting name and click go. Your team can access the same meeting with the same meeting name and that's it.

2 Better Screen Sharing

The screen sharing is faster and easier to execute. The user experience with this is excellent with low latency.

3 Optimizing your Experience

Both the video and audio can be simply configured for the best experience given your connectivity set up. I was impressed at how much easier this is to setup than other software that we're familiar with. It simply works like a native web app.

Conclusion

Use Jitsi.

Use Open Source.

Use tools that are designed to expand your freedoms and not curtail them.

Proprietary companies always want something from you; whether it's your money, your data, your privacy or your time. The Open Source technology always lays the foundation for something bigger and better - and Jitsi is a great place to start.