Show HN: Beesy – Record Google Meets for free, download locally | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Beesy – Record Google Meets for free, download locally

chrome.google.com

58 pointspiyu_sh39 comments

Happy New Year everyone!

Me and my friend developed this extension to record google meets to the computer directly, there is no cloud dependency, neither do we require any signups, and its free.

We hacked this together in a very small amount of time to check if people would actually use it, so if you find this useful, please let us know so we can improve it.

Also, if you have any feedback/questions/ideas, please do not hesitate and leave a comment.

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I'm genuinely curious of Google will allow this to stay up, seeing as saving Meet recordings is a feature that belongs to the paid tier of Meet (Workspace).

Not that they'd probably justify a takedown with that, but more that it could be used to record meeting participants without their consent.

Which is actually a big deal -- all videoconferencing software I'm aware of puts up a big notice and indicator that you are being recorded, and this is for both legal and privacy reasons.

While obviously you could always use any screen recording software (like OBS or even just QuickTime) to secretly record a video meeting... I'm not sure that a tool like this, specifically advertised for recording Meets, is entirely kosher whether legally or according to Meet's TOS. (Of course IANAL.)

If I were you, I'd add ridiculously large multiple disclaimers you have to check and click through to state you agree never to record any meeting participants without their consent. And even with that, I'm not sure how long this will stay up...

But nevertheless, technologically it's a very cool tool, so congrats! :)

People who are going to use this plugin is not Google's target audience for the paid tier.

No companies which makes a non trivial amount of money are going to use this plugin instead of buying Google's paid plan.

If you work in a company which will be going to use this plugin, get out of the company immediately and find a new job.

> it could be used to record meeting participants without their consent.

It's also possible to record a meeting inconspicuously by using literally any screen recording software. It's even built into macOS (via QuickTime), iOS (native function), and Android (native function).

At the same time, including support for undisclosed meeting recording "out of the box" doesn't seem like a good idea, it's certainly not respectful.

I don't think you read up to my fourth paragraph. ;)

You're right. Sorry, my bad.

Amusingly (or concerningly?), that is the only one I somehow missed.

:-s

Yeah surely we'll be adding disclaimers, thanks.

But I'm curious why hasn't google banned other chrome extensions that record google meets and all of them are either paid or free with some limitations, so we're not the only ones bypassing premium gsuite.

Beesy dev (the other one) here. We'll update the extension's description to mention the consent scenario. In the meanwhile please share your experience, features or bugs here: https://beesy.canny.io/

Are you using the local storage of the browser, then letting the user download from there? Otherwise it would still be loading up to some cloud.

Personally, I use: https://www.read.ai/

Records the meetings, provides searchable transcripts, meeting summaries work pretty well, interactions, etc.

The key difference is it joins as a bot, so I don't have to think about it. However, it does require the files are stored in the cloud (although, I read.ai has an option to just track talk time, mute, etc; which doesn't record the meeting).

Not using any cloud would be a plus in my book.

It uses browser blob storage to store the recording.

We also plan to add these searchable transcript, summaries and other features but depends on if this stays up :)

How likely is google to break this if it gets popular?

They could easily override `chrome.tabCapture.capture` or some other function that you depend on once the Meet page is loaded.

Yeah can totally happen, and we'll be pretty sad but this started as a fun project so it'd be pretty cool that google changes their api because of us.

Also I'll be doing some research on similar extensions on why they are not banned.

There's always widevine.

This is super helpful (although it bypasses needing to pay for a premium gsuite plan). How does it work?

It uses screen recording apis provided by chrome itself. Also there are many such chrome extensions that record google meets but all of them are either paid or free with some limitations, so we're not the only ones bypassing premium gsuite.

Is Meet the same as Hangouts?

No, hangouts is now google chat, meet is what was previously google duo.

Looks neat. Just a reminder for folks that some states (like California) are Two Party Consent states, meaning it is a crime to record the call unless all parties consent to it.

Can we solve this by putting a disclaimer in extension home page that it is upto the user to inform all parties and take their consent before recording ? Not really sure how to solve this, would love feedback.

A disclaimer should work just fine as it’s the users responsibility to adhere to terms in their state/country.

Add it to your “terms of use” as well.

If you decide to turn it into a business, be sure to consult with an attorney (ie. 30mins).

You can invent a very elaborate system of pushing a request to the meet chat, having everyone consent to recording, parsing their responses, and offering feedback and help if it doesn't go as expected..

Or you can just put a disclaimer in your extension that some states require two party consent and remind the user to comply with local laws.

Fwiw, I'm on a lot of zoom calls with outside companies that have a "note taker" that is clearly a bot that records video and maybe does transcription. Most of the time it is not mentioned.

Why would you need their consent?

I record all my pro teams meeting with OBS in order to be able to watch a part of it in case my attention has been drifting away. It is perfectly legal.

I would totally need their consent if I had any plan to make those videos available to anyone else but that is another subject (diffusion).

Because in some states consent is required before recording a conversation. Regardless of what you plan to use the recording for.

Ok that is just not the law in my country.

I think it is outside the scope of the software to define what one should or shouldn't do depending of every state/country juridiction.

That is not how the law works. It is illegal to record them period.

See reply to comment abovr. Juridictions varies depending on location, I don't think a software developer has to make sure its usage complies with every juridictions, it is up to the users to do that.

Yes, it is up to the user but I was replying to someone that said they record them still and just don't share them. I was stating that is still illegal under the law.

The point here is that laws vary by jurisdiction.

It's also illegal to record the expression of consent to start recording!

I'm not in startup world or in San Francisco so I gotta ask: is Google Meet popular with y'all? I'm on video calls pretty much all day every day and I'm mostly on Zoom or Teams, and I attend more WebEx meetings than Google Meet.

Yes we exclusively use google meet. It's very nice. I feel pain every time I have to use anything else.

Coming from jitsi, it is a pain when I have to use google meet.

I'm out of the midwest and work in a customer facing role and this is what I see out here:

In the last ~year I've noticed what seemed to be like a wave of everyone going to Zoom really slowed or in some sectors reversed. There seemed to be a period where it seemed every O365 shop was getting Zoom to do meetings. Lately though I've seen more switch back to using Teams (which admittedly isn't as horrendous for larger calls anymore) as the first choice but not necessarily getting rid of Zoom completely. To be honest the larger the place the more likely they have more solutions.

Meet (and Google Workspace in general) remains a powerhouse in the education space but larger traditional enterprise seems to have problems staying with it when they make the switch often flipping back fully or sometimes mixing it by department. Can't say much about smaller enterprise beyond generally they go with bundled solutions if they are tech or office focused (e.g. Google or Microsoft) or whatever is cheapest otherwise.

I still run into a few Webex calls but really I haven't seen 1/10th as many of these as I used to by ratio. It's basically in the "other" category at this point with things like RingCentral and GoToMeeting.

I'm not in SF either, and on Linux with Firefox on Wayland Meet just works with my camera through a capture card, external audio interface, screen sharing, etc. Every single time. I cringe when somebody mentions other tools, especially Teams. The only other tool that just works is whatever the calling software AWS uses and Jitsi.

Well well well, Meet creeps many features if you don't use Chrome, Chime UI is so bad that a kitten dies each time someone uses it and finally Zoom works pretty nicely with the Linux client (they finally added almost all the features there lately), while Teams well, yes, it sucks.

Did Zoom fix window sharing with Wayland?

I think that got fixed a couple of months back but, like pretty much any other working wayland screen sharing, you need pipewire running (which your DE may do for you depending what you use).

Yes, because it’s free and easy to manage as part of Google Apps. It works well most of the time, although lacks a few of Zoom’s bells and whistles.

Google Meets has some other bells and whistles that I don't think Zoom has comparable features for though, particularly companion mode. Being able to join a Google Meet on one device (like a phone) and join on another device for screen sharing was something I found myself doing quite often when attending online meetings and having a "Tfirst class citizen" method for that was awesome.

Zoom allows for the same thing: connecting via both phone and another device for screen sharing.

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