JITSI

Move over Zoom, Skype and all the rest – Nick Peers reveals how to set up your own public (and private) group video chats for free with Jitsi Meet.

Credit: https://jitsi.org/jitsi-meet

OUR EXPERT

Nick Peers wonders why more people don’t use Jitsi to stay in touch. He can’t praise it highly enough!

When it comes to web conferencing, Jitsi is king of the hill. Don’t believe us? Back in LXF217 it won our video-conferencing group test hands down with five-star ratings across the board. Take a trip to the project’s home page at https://jitsi.org and you might be forgiven for thinking it’s a slightly fragmented project with a multitude of different tools, but ultimately Jitsi can be boiled down to two basic products.

These days, Jitsi is focused on its web-based Jitsi Meet platform (https://jitsi.org/jitsi-meet), designed as an open-source and free alternative to the likes of Zoom. The other product is a throwback to Jitsi’s early existence as a multi-platform chat tool, but while Jitsi Desktop still has its own website (https://desktop.jitsi.org), development ceased four years ago.

For this reason we’re going to concentrate on Jitsi Meet, but if you’re desperate to run Jitsi Desktop then check out the box (page 62) for the workaround required to get it up and running in your current distro.

Navigating your conference room

1  Network status

From this window you can get a quick-fire look at your connection from the icon – green is good, red is bad.

2  User thumbnails

When you’re in full-screen view, click someone else’s thumbnail to focus on their video screen.

3  Control meetings

Roll your mouse over a participant’s thumbnail to reveal more options for managing them during the call.

4  Conference tools

From left to right: open the public chat window, set up screen sharing, and put up your hand to speak.

5  Core controls

These enable you to quickly mute or unmute your microphone, turn your video on and off, or leave the conference.

6  Additional options

Toggle tile view, invite more participants, set security options for the conference and access more options.

Why Jitsi Meet?

The obvious reasons to choose Jitsi Meet over other web conference platforms are the fact it’s both open source – so completely transparent – and free for both personal and commercial use with support for up to 50 participants. All calls are encrypted, and the service provides all the tools you’d expect from any good web-conferencing platform: pop-up chat, the ability to share screens and even the opportunity to remotely control another participant’s desktop.

It’s also easy to use – you can set up a meeting in seconds and share an invite with anyone who has a webcam and web browser. They don’t need to install any software, although free tools for desktop and mobile (Android and iOS) are available.