Looking for a desktop-sharing conference service (Skype alternative)

[Megadoomer]

Hi everyone,

I'm currently looking for an alternative to Skype, peferably free (as in gratis) and/or FOSS, but commercial (inexpensive) software is also an option.

We are a group of 3-4 friends who are working on small projects and need a messenger service that allows conference calls between us all as well as desktop-sharing of one conference member. The program has to be available for Linux as well as Windows. At the moment, we are using Skype for this purpose, but for me, it's the only reason why I still have to have a small Windows partition on my laptop, because video conferences don't work in the Linux version and everyone else is constantly mad at it for its bad performance and errors with showing random missed calls and similar issues.

Is there any program that you could think of that would be an alternative for us?


Best regards!

[TheFu]

Easiest to hardest

* talky.io
* google hangouts
* http://www.ekiga.org/
* install, configure, maintain, BigBlueButton, but that is exponentially harder.

I´ve tried the last 2 and didn´t get them working.
Won´t use google hangouts due to privacy concerns + requirement for a google account.

talky.io is bonehead simple. Modern browser with webRTC and javascript support needed. It requires a mic and webcam to join, but those can be immediately muted. Firefox, chromium browsers work. Don´t think Safari or IE do, but I don´t know. Chrome should, but I´ve never used it. Opera might work, don´t know.

[Megadoomer]

Hey TheFu,

thank you for your suggestions. I actually forgot to mention that it would also be an advantage if the service is available on mobile devices, so I guess I'll have to sell my soul and go with Google Hangouts for now. At least for this purpose, will definitely take a look at talky.io and Ekiga for more private usage as well.

If there are any other ideas, I'm always interested.

[alex551]

You can try https://www.freeconferencecall.com/
It is free support audio, video, screen-sharing, recording, mobile etc
It just added linux support (about a month ago) - have some bugs but updates come regular

[TheFu]

I´ve used freeconferencecallHD.com for years for voice calls. Others would call in using the LD number and I´d connect using SIP. Never tried the sharing/video parts. It did work relatively well, but was limited to 60min calls for the free accounts.


talky.io works with smartphones. At my LUG a few weeks ago, about 5 people joined the same ¨room¨ while sitting at the same table. This was all behind a since NAT´ed connection to the internet. Main issue we had was feedback from all the initial connections (unmuted mics), so folks will need to mute their audio when not speaking. Just use android´s Chrome browser. Works fine.

[alex551]

freeconferencecallHD.com this is the same company but a bit different service. Freeconferencecall.com (without HD) it support up to 1000 participant for free (audio/video/screensharing) and have a WEB client (which support audio, video and screen sharing viewer)