Zoom vs. Hangouts vs. Houseparty: How are you keeping in touch with friends and family?
Social distancing doesn’t mean you can stay in touch.
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If you’re sticking to social distancing recommendations, it means you’re spendinga lotof time inside. That can put a cramp on time with friends and family, but there are a lot of tools out there to help us keep in touch with one another. Personally, I’ve been sticking to a mix of Facetime and regular old phone calls, but I’ve seen a lot of people turning to things like Zoom and Houseparty as well, with a bit of Skype sprinkled in there, too.
So, with all of the craziness going on in the world, how are you staying in touch with friends and family? Let us know in the poll below.
Update:Added Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp to the poll.
Nothing really replaces face-to-face contact, but it’s been fun to see how people are finding ways to use apps not only to chat, but to host little events here and there. My friends and I ended up turning to Skype for a virtual movie night recently, though it ultimately turned into us just chatting and ignoring the movie. We’ve even struck up a virtual happy hour with some Windows Central folks and our colleagues at Android Central and iMore.
As more people have shifted to virtual meetups, we’ve also seen some troubling reports pop up about the different apps out there.Zoom is under fireon several fronts, whileHousepartyhas endured claims that using it could lead to your other accounts being compromised (a claim Houseparty has denied).
If you need some tips on how to get going with some of the bigger services out there while you’re stuck at home, we have some guides that should come in handy. If you’re trying to choose between Google Hangouts and Zoom,we’ve weighed the pros and consof each. You can also check out how you canget started with Hangouts and Meet, and why youshould or shouldn’t use Houseparty.
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Dan Thorp-Lancaster is the former Editor-in-Chief of Windows Central. He began working with Windows Central, Android Central, and iMore as a news writer in 2014 and is obsessed with tech of all sorts. You can follow Dan on Twitter@DthorpLand Instagram@heyitsdtl.
