"Employees who have been using Zoom to stay in touch with family and friends can continue to do so through a web browser or via mobile."
(Disclosure: I work for Google, speaking only for myself)
(Disclosure: I work for Google, speaking only for myself)
It uses shitty dark patterns that require two or three clicks and at one point, if I'm not mistaken, waiting for a link to appear after a delay.
In my most recent experience with it, it led to a zip file being automatically downloaded to my computer. This when I already have had plenty of previous experience with the web app and was deliberately trying to reach to the web page for a meeting for which I had been sent a URL.
Slack does similar things but isn't quite so aggressive about it.
I'm pretty sure they do that because their web app is garbage, and they know people will get a much better experience in the native app.
Notably, Zoom's native app is truly native; it's not some electron wrapper like Slack or Teams. I don't think it's a coincidence that Zoom is both (A) the only major solution that seem to work consistently with large numbers of participants, and (B) the only one not using WebRTC.
not if I'm a user who is actively trying to not install the native app. for me, and likely many others, security and privacy trump performance benchmarks and UI/UX all day, every day.
My new strategy is to call in and say "Sorry, I can't see your screen because Zoom doesn't work on my computer," which is a completely unnecessary situation that Zoom creates by intentionally adding roadblocks to their web app.
It's hard to imagine why they'd want to push the desktop app that hard. I don't want to assume anything untoward, but it'd be a lot easier to dismiss the whole sending-data-to-China thing if they didn't try so hard to force you onto the version of their product that's capable of such a thing.