Google also slowly began to open the gates of its corporate communicator chat to ordinary humans. In addition, it gave a slightly new look to the service, which brings back some of the goodness available in older hangouts.

Google has been phasing out old hangouts for years, and now only looks like we can see it. The company is starting to move other users to the new service with a revised look. This is not such a redesign, but rather a transfer of some features from the old hangout to chat.

On the right is the new look, on the left is the original. They differ mainly in side menus

Chat is primarily a corporate service that enables communication with colleagues, within teams, forming groups, integrating with message boards and robots. It is fully available only to users of the workspace, regular users can usually only participate in conversations in which they have been invited.

But that is slowly changing. Google has also brought a useful feature, and that is Conversations in small pop-ups. So, similar to the original hangout, or Facebook within its social network. This makes it possible to track messages from multiple threads at the same time, even if you are viewing different content. The side menu has also changed, with a list of conversations, rooms, and video calls.

All changes are critical to the post-service integration into Gmail, which Google Announced last year. This is where pop-ups and other tweaks should be available.

Features still missing for the average user

If you are not a corporate customer, the new form of chat or access to the application cannot be manually switched. They have the option to migrate through the Admin console. In my personal account, the chat was active only on the computer, with the mobile application still reporting service unavailability. For now, Google is taking full time.

For the average user, however, chat brings up almost nothing compared to older hangouts, and if we compare them with Messenger, Telegram or WhatsApp, for example, most of the things we use are missing. . While it is an emoji response to messages and it is possible to edit messages sent in the same way on Telegram, there is a lack of direct support for stickers, sending multiple images in one message, sharing location and other gifts.

What privacy does each chat application provide?