Google Meet Now Available For Free

Photo Credit: Google

Google’s premium video conferencing platform is available for free

Google wants in on the video conference action. It’s Meet, which is the Search giant’s video conferencing platform rival to Zoom and Microsoft’s Skype will be accessible to more people. Previously, Google Meet was only available to enterprise users, individuals and organizations that use the paid version of Google’s app services known as G Suite.

Now however, the company has allowed access to everyone for free. Available as an app on the Play Store and Apple’s App Store, Google Meet allows users to schedule, join or start secure video meetings with anyone. All that’s needed is an email address for an attendee to join a session.

In addition to this, users will also get features available to business and education users such as screen sharing, real-time captions, and layouts and expanded tiled view. As an extra security measure, Meet users can enroll their account in Google’s Advanced Protection Program for protection against phishing and account hijacking.

Photo Credit: Google

Google Meet can also be accessed on any web browser by heading to meet.google.com. This means that users on desktop PCs or laptops do not need to download or install additional plug-ins to use the video conferencing program. This, Google believes is a major advantage over rival programs, and helps prevent unauthorized access to meeting sessions or data theft.

If you have an existing Google account, sign in at meet.google.com to get started. The company says that users can begin using the free version in early May but no actual date has been provided. Once available, the free version will allow meeting sessions to be held for a maximum of 60 minutes. However, this will only be enforced after September 30th.

Google wants to do its part to make sure individuals and small business can continue to work or contact loved ones during the lockdowns with the help of its video conference apps. Also, the company has said that it considers user security and privacy to be of paramount importance to it. And as such, has enabled by default in Google Meet, are several safety measures to ensure that users have the best experience possible.

Sign up here to be notified when Google Meet will be available.