On Thursday 28. May 2020 11.55.05 V F wrote:

I have had very good experience with whereby.com (company from Norway though not hosted by me). They seem to have very decent privacy policy and you do not need any app install for using it.

I have had to use whereby.com (formerly appear.in) for work. It appears to use the built-in support found in mainstream Web browsers for audio-/video- conferencing, which is probably what most of these solutions do, but the interface is more responsive and better performing than the Zoom interface in the browser; Zoom also being institutionally imposed under the usual insistence that "top men" have made sure it is secure, with much hand waving about things like privacy and surveillance.

What we should be arguing for is that public institutions (like my employer) deploy - and invest in - genuinely open and interoperable platforms for such services so that people inside and beyond the organisation can access services without needing a relationship with some random company. I actually had to use whereby.com for the interview for my current position, and the ancient hardware I use at home just wasn't up to the task. But people shouldn't be obliged to have the latest hardware or a particular browser for things to work "at their best" or even at all.

Ultimately, I was able to dial into the interview over the phone. Of course, in such situations, one always feels that one is asking for special favours when one has to admit that one does not use Skype, WhatsApp, Telegram or the latest shiny toy, preferring to use the established, relatively interoperable system that has existed for decades and mostly just works.

Paul