The Coronavirus Pandemic has made a tidal shift in how people work. Due to the lockdown imposed by governments around the world, we have been habituated to connect with our friends and family via video calls.

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Also people have been left with no choice but to accept remote working and remote learning as the current status quo. So i'm gonna tell you about the top 5 video conferencing apps that you can use to ensure that you can carry on with your work from the comforts of your home, while staying safe.

FaceTime

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Overview: FaceTime videotelephony app developed by Apple. It is available on iOS mobiles and Macbooks having Mac OS X version 10.6.6 and later.

Features: Group video-conferencing feature was added from iOS version 12 onwards supporting upto 32 in a call simultaneously.

The FaceTime application is integrated with the iPhone, hence users can simply switch over from a voice call by pressing the FaceTime icon.

For every five minutes FaceTime audio uses 3 megabytes of data. FaceTime video uses significantly more data compared to that.

Privacy: On January 28, 2019, a bug was discovered in the FaceTime app that allowed users to eavesdrop on other users without their knowledge through an exploit. It was later discovered the video feed could be enabled without the other users' acceptance. Apple said in a statement that it would release a fix for the exploit shortly, disabling Group FaceTime for the time being. The bug was named "FacePalm" by security researchers, and affects iOS devices running Facetime on iOS 12.1 or Mac computers running MacOS 10.14.1 Mojave. On February 7, Apple fixed the FaceTime vulnerabilities in iOS 12.1.4 and a Supplemental Update for macOS Mojave 10.14.3.

Skype

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Overview: Skype is a videotelephony as well as chat application service owned by Microsoft. It is supported on variety of devices such as computers, mobile phones, smartwatches, tablets and Xbox console.

Features: Registered users on Skype can communicate through instant messaging, voice calls and video calls. You can also use in-built features such as white board and emotions.

Group video-conferencing is available for upto 50 people at a time.

In 2019, they added a feature to blur the background of the user using Artificial Intelligence algorithms, without the need to have depth sensing camera.

Privacy: The 2013 mass surveillance disclosures revealed that agencies such as the NSA and the FBI have the ability to eavesdrop on Skype, including the monitoring and storage of text and video calls and file transfers. The PRISM surveillance program, which requires FISA court authorization, reportedly has allowed the NSA unfettered access to its data center supernodes.

Meet

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Overview: Google Meet is a videotelephony application developed by Google. It is one of two apps that constitutes the replacement of Google Hangouts and Google Chat. It has a lot of features that have been integrated from these two apps.

Features: Up to 100 members per call for G Suite Basic users, up to 150 for G Suite Business users, and up to 250 for G Suite Enterprise users.

Integration with Google Calendar for one-click meeting calls.

Real-time captions based on speech recognition built on NLP.

Privacy: Google Meet is an end-to-end encrypted service, and no major privacy concerns have been raised upto the time of this writing. Google is known to sell user data to companies for advertising purpose.

Zoom

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Overview: Zoom is videotelephony and teleconferencing app that is currently the most used all over the world. Zoom was started by a former Webex employee. It is the best example of a peer-to-peer infrastructure software. Many educational institutes use this service.

Features: It offers free, 40-minute conference calls with up to 100 attendees the premium version has unlimited minutes and analytics.

You can customize your background picture to make it more colorful and attractive.

You can send public as well as direct messages to people in the meeting.

Privacy: Security researchers and reporters have criticized the company for its lack of transparency and poor encryption practices. Zoom initially claimed to use "end-to-end" in its marketing materials, but later clarified it meant "from Zoom end point to Zoom end point" (meaning effectively between Zoom servers and Zoom clients).

Zoombombing, for one, has taken advantage of Zoom’s system of randomly generated ID access codes and lack of required passwords to join a call. People drop into Zoom calls that aren’t their own and broadcast offensive material, like pornography. One automated tool developed by security researchers can find around 100 Zoom meeting IDs in an hour and information for nearly 2,400 Zoom meetings in a single day of scans, just as an example of how easy it can be to find meetings to join.

Webex

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Overview: Cisco Webex is the first modern videotelephony service started in 1995. It was acquired by Cisco in 2007. It is mainly used by corporations and news broadcasters.

Features: Due Webex being a part of Cisco it has a well connected network of data centers, users can experience virtually no lag and enjoy uninterrupted communication without any noise.

Additionally, It is compatible with a number of devices such as webcams so you can have a lot of options.

The main advantage of using Cisco Webex lies in the fact that it guarantees secure data encryption(end-to-end), conference password protection, and network security protocols, keeping companies protected from sensitive data leakage when sharing documents and confidential conversations.

Privacy: Policy defines a window of upto seven years before users's data gets deleted.

Policy mentions but does not place consistent limits on, data use for ML, AI or human review.