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Comment by Geezus_42 | Hacker News Reader

The web version also won't allow the host to request control from what I can tell. I use it daily for remote support because new webex sucks and no one knows what jitsi is.

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I love Jitsi and have a server VM at home for my personal use.

But while it can share a desktop view I didn't think it allowed control?!? Man, this could be a family support game changer...

Edit:

requires Electron app it seems. https://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet-electron/releases

Was on HN, some comments suggest the Electron app bundles Chromium.(Not sure if all Electron apps do this, I know nothing about Electron..yet.) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22830846

Edit sub basement 2: Yes, Electron apps include Chromium. "it combines the Chromium rendering engine and the Node.js runtime."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_(software_framework)

All Electron apps are Chromium-based.

Sorry, just figured that out for myself and edited my parent comment again. Thanks!

Do you really think controlling your local desktop is an API feature that web browsers should provide to web apps?

Stated "Should local desktop control API be widely available to web apps and be commonly used?", the answer is surely no.

"Should local desktop control be a feature that can be enabled through web browsers for users who choose to use it with certain sites?" Eh, this is not so clear. What if by some magical turn of events Zoom decided on a drunken whim that user privacy is very important, and strongly encouraged use of web over desktop, should they just axe that feature? Back in reality, Zoom couldn't even consider that course of action until the web supports it.

Maybe do it by requiring users to install an extension that's granted remote desktop permission for a particular site. Which would at least allow the extension to be reviewed and audited.

Chrome Remote Desktop does it (requires a browser extension though I think).

And the browser extension runs a native .exe file behind the scenes...

Chicken-and-egg etc. People will know what Jitsi is when you use it with them. It's so simple, why not have them use it? Why do they have to know it already?

When Teams breaks, it's Teams's fault. When Jitsi breaks, it's your fault.

Been using jit.si for months with extended family (up to ~7 connections), not broken yet.

Same, approximately. I got one literal grandma to use Jitsi, and all of my literal grandparents to use BigBlueButton, and the latter actually took effort. Jitsi is significantly easier to use than Zoom et al., requiring no account or anything but a browser even to host a meeting, and having an extremely intuitive UI compared to eg. Zoom, with eg. the "Raise Hand" button being a hand icon right on the bottom bar next to mute, etc. where there’s just empty space in Zoom, instead of buried under a "Participants" button. BigBlueButton is slightly less simple (eg. you need to log in to host, at least by clicking “Login with Google” or with Twitter or Microsoft) but both have worked flawlessly over dozens of meetings and been understandable to my grandparents.

Then you are lucky. It breaks frequently (but randomly) and when it does, it's almost impossible to debug unless you have access to the broken machine (and that is unlikely given that you're probably at home and so are they).

Breaks how? I've used it on about 6 devices personally, roughly a couple of times a week and all our extended family have used it on one or two devices - Win10, iPad (I gather), Android, and Linux.

If it breaks a lot we must have been exceptionally lucky for none of us to have problems.

"It works on my machine" was generally the feedback I got from the server maintainers as well. It's true that only a few people had problems, but those people were the kind of people that needed to be listened to when they said "Jitsi doesn't work so we need something else". The problems in Jitsi were impenetrable for me and anyone else that looked into them, so saying no wasn't an option.

For remote support, you may want to look into a more purpose-built system, such as TeamViewer or LogMeIn Rescue.

If youre ok trusting smaller companies, AeroAdmin is a working alternative. https://www.aeroadmin.com/

Last time I spoke with TeamViewer, they still wouldn't admit they were hacked.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11826431 (TeamViewer denies hack after PCs hijacked, PayPal accounts drained)

Yep, switched my parents off TeamViewer after that and have blacklisted it personally.

That hack would have required the persistent login features to be installed on the target computers.

For simple remote support, you shouldn't be doing that anyway.

MS Teams has the same behaviour in web client. Is it browser-level restriction?

Google Meet has tiled view on web.

(And Jitsi Meet and BigBlueButton, and according to another comment here Discord, and in my limited experience with Cisco WebEX web at least ≤7 people can be simultaneously visible there)

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