Libre software for video calls
I am a member!
Hello everybody,
Which software do you recommend for video calls? I tried Linphone but encounter problems (See https://trisquel.info/en/forum/linphone-doesnt-work). I also looked for Jitsi Desktop but it's not included in Trisquel. Is it not libre software? Is Jitsi Meet safe and libre?
Thanks in advance!
I am a member!
I would like to add that I'm aware of the following site: https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/priority-projects/voicevideochat and that maybe my request is a bit too early as I haven't tried all the options listed there yet.
> Jitsi Desktop but it's not included in Trisquel. Is it not libre software?
It is free software. You can download the debian
packages here:
https://download.jitsi.org/jitsi/debian/
You can use gdebi to install jitsi. You probably have to
install
jitsi-archive-keyring_1.0.1_all.deb
first.
Then install
jitsi_2.10.5550-1_amd64.deb
According to jitsi's forum the jitsi packages
are still maintained.
> Is Jitsi Meet safe and libre?
Meet jitsi is free software. If you install meet jitsi
on your own computer, then you know your meet
jitsi sessions are run by free software. If you
use meet.jit.si then you are using software, which
runs on someone else hardware. Maybe you can trust it,
maybe you cannot. You will have to decide. It
will surprise me, if there is something sketchy
about meet.jit.si. If it is about making it
more difficult for an opponent to spy on your
communication, meet.jit.si likely qualifies.
There is a man in the middle attack which is relevant
regarding meet.jit.si. It is complicated and since
I did not understand it fully, I am not going to
try to explain. I think it is the same attack which
also is in question about protonmail.com.
I have tested jitsi desktop on a debian 10
computer. Audio and video and messaging works. Desktop
sharing did not work well.
On meet.jit.si audio and video and messaging has
worked well on debian 10 firefox. Desktop sharing
works better than on jitsi desktop. But you
frequently have to reload the website.
There is this thing called "riot-web" based on that matrix stuff in the parabola repositories. It does not seem to be in trisquel repositories for some reason. At least not by that name. But if it is in the Parabola ones it's libre.
I have used Jitsi through a web browser which is my preferred option. It doesn't even require you to make an account! This seems like the most convenient thing. You just create an old fashioned chatroom and then share the link with your family.
GNU Jami is very good.
Best,
Michael
What is GNU? Check out https://www.gnu.org/
GPG Key: 4337 2794 C8AD D5CA 8FCF FA6C D037 59DA B600 E3C0
I am a member!
Thank you very much for your help! We are now using both Jami and Jitsi Meet and both work quite well.
I am a member!
Hello again!
Over the last two weeks, both jami and jitsi have proven to be not as reliable as in the beginning. I feel dissatisfied because videos tend to freeze once every few minutes and sound quality is very variable (from excellent to barely understandable). This is true both for jami and jitsi.
How can I find out if I can change anything about it? The problems persist even using a LAN cable connection to the router so I subspect it has got something to do with bandwidth or the jami/jitsi servers.
Does anybody else encounter similar problems with jami/jitsi? Is a bandwidth of 10 Mb/s upstream sufficient for VoIP calls?
Thanks in advance!
I used jami a little bit over the last year. I had some earlier problems last year but it has been good for me recently. That said I was using it only for 1-1 voice calls (from Trisquel GNU/Linux) recently. I've had good video calls too. I don't know what is the required bandwidth but certainly such comms can be sensitive to wifi connection strength. Therefore you may wish to use a wired network connection or make sure you are not too far from your wifi antenna.
Has anyone experience of jami/jitsi with many users, with screensharing to show a Libre Office presentation? With the covid-19 lockdown I'm finding colleagues wanting to use video conferencing more so it would be good when free software solves it without destroying privacy/IT security.
I don't know about jitsi. I'll have to check that out sometime if its free software.
nice username.
I am also interested in this. they are suggesting we use "zoom" which is certainly not free at our university.
Jitsi seems to not allow audio in abrowser for some reason. this might be a settings issue but i couldn't fix it even though i can verify my microphone is on and picking up sound in other programs
For my online course, aside from using Telegram as voice call (one on
one), I use Jitsi Meet for screen sharing as I teach GNU/Linux via
that. Jitsi has a gratis server everybody could create at anytime to
use with multiple users at https://meet.jit.si which I use to do voice
conference with my students. I'm sorry I don't know about video call
as I do not use that feature.
I am a member!
Even with a wire connection, Jami and Jitsi didn't work well for us between two European countries. After long research and a few months of high telephone bills, we started to use Wire which has been published under the GPL v.3 so it should be considered free software ...
Have a look at https://trisquel.info/en/forum/jami-and-jitsi-unreliable-video-calls for more exchange about video chat!
I am a translator!
Video calls worked well for me when using a free Linphone account with Blink (the other party also used Blink but on Windows).
It depends on your use case. For private voice/ video calls between 2-3 users, Jami or Tox are P2P options. Wire can work for small groups too (Telegram has a nonfree server, and I'm told Signal can only do 1=1 voice/ video). For larger voice/ video meetings, I recommend Big Blue Button. But you'd either need to self-host your own instance, or find one that's available for public use.
The thing with any web-based conference service like Zoom, Jitsi Meet, or Big Blue Button, is that the conference can be entered by anyone who can get a copy of the conference URL. Sometimes these services can allow a password to be set for a conference, so a Bad Actor would need both the URL and password to spy on or disrupt it. But they're still more vulnerable than services like Wire that require users to authenticate before getting access to the system. Systems like Jami that don't depend on a server are (in theory) even less vulnerable to Bad Actors.