The current pandemic has led to most of us staying at and working from home, resulting in a high reliance on video conferencing apps — including Google Meet, Google’s premium video conferencing product. Due to the increase of usage and the need for video conferencing apps, Google has decided to make Google Meet free for everyone.
Google Meet will be rolling out over the next few weeks, allowing anyone to use the app without having to pay for the subscription fee. Despite the sudden growth in usage and participants, Google is still prioritizing privacy and security and said, “It’s important that everyone who uses Meet has a secure and reliable experience from the start.”
Image credit: Google
Google also included a few safety measures to guarantee a secured user experience such as prohibiting anonymous users to join meetings created by individual accounts, encrypting all meetings in transit and allowing users to enroll their accounts in Google’s Advanced Protection Program.
There are some differences between the free version of Google Meet and the premium version, but those going for the free version should be able to enjoy many similar features like screen sharing, real-time captions and expanded tiled view. Google also pointed out that the free product will limit meetings to 60 minutes in the future — after September 30 — but for now, the limit will not be implemented.
