Google Hangouts was released in 2013, and while it had its day in the sun, it eventually fell out of favor. Google Chat is one of two services that is replacing Hangouts. Chat is the text arm, while Google Meet is the video arm.
Once Hangouts is officially retired, Google Chat will be available for everyone.
Google Hangouts works with your Google account, allowing you to communicate with your Google contacts through text messages, video chats and voice calls. A great thing about Google Hangouts is if you’re on the go, you can start a Hangouts session on your computer, and seamlessly continue it on your mobile device.
You could be thinking “What is the best alternative to Google Hangouts?”
Riot is another great replacement tool for Hangouts, offering a wealth of integrations, highly adaptable communication tools (you can chat, share files, add widgets, make video calls, etc), and overall security. Essentially, everything you were doing with Hangouts, you can do with Riot.
Is Google finally getting rid of Hangouts?
Now, it seems Google is finally pulling the trigger, with plans to eventually scrap Hangouts in favor of Google Chat and Google Meet sometime next year. According to a Google blog post, the company plans to transition all users from Hangouts to Chat within the first half of 2021, leading to the eventually dismantling of Hangouts as a whole.
You might be thinking “Does google hangouts work anymore?”
Google has announced that it will be doing away with Hangouts in favor of other communication platforms within its ecosystem. Google continues to play musical chairs with its communication tools, as the company announced that it will gradually transition Hangouts users into Chat in 2021.
Google on Thursday provided an update for users who still rely on Hangouts to chat with friends and family. The search giant said in the first half of 2021, Hangouts users will be migrated to a free version of Google Chat — the Slack and Discord competitor currently available to enterprise users.
Google is going to slowly close out Hangouts, and will move most of its features to its Google Chat service in the next year. Google is finally giving us some details about its plans to close out classic Hangouts. Many of the features of the messaging service will switch over to Google Chat.
In 2013 though, Google Hangouts launched at the Google I/O event- though it came without any announcement to shutdown Google Talk (until 2015) and eventually Google+ (earlier this year). Then, in 2016, Google announced Allo, a messaging app, and Duo, a video-calling app, separately.
What are the pros and cons of Google Hangouts?
Pros and Cons of Google Hangouts. Google Hangouts is great because it’s really an all-in-one communication tool – it allows users to send each other text messages and photos, and make video or voice calls . It’s also easily accessible on a variety of devices, so you can use it at home or on-the-go!
Google Hangouts works well for the solo user needing a simple and free communication tool. It is not for businesses and isn’t the top video conferencing software available. But it’s excellent for personal use, despite lacking the capabilities of competitors like Zoho Meetingand Ring, and central video.
Does Google Hangouts support Google Fi users?
Because Hangouts will make way for Chat, that means Google will need to make changes to Hangouts for Google Fi users. That includes removing Fi support in Hangouts early next year.