Jitsi Meet, what it is and how it works

In the middle of the coronavirus quarantine there are many applications and websites that are used to make video calls, so today we present youJitsi Meet , a website and app to make video calls with a maximum of 200 participants and free.

Among the wide range of options we have Skype, we have WhatsApp video calls, also Instagram, Google Duo, Hangouts, Zoom, etc.

The latter has broken the trust of its thousands and thousands of users since passwords were leaked due to a security breach, something almost unforgivable. The company commented that they were already fixing the leak.

Video conferences with multiple functionalities

Jitsi Meet is an open source platform that facilitates video conferencing between friends, family, in companies, schools, etc. In addition, it allows a maximum of 200 interlocutors and not only stays in an app or web video calls, but allows us to go further.

Being open source, its services are offered free of charge and also allows you to be part of its team of developers.

Another possibility that Jitsi gives us is that we can record video calls, we can also chat, share screen, there are talk time statistics of each caller, we can broadcast directly to YouTube live, audio-only or audio-only option video, we can raise our hand for attention, etc.

For the vast majority of options that we have mentioned in the previous paragraph, you need to install Jibri on your PC through Google Chrome. To install you need development knowledge and it is done through the web that we leave under these lines:

Start using Jitsi Meet in 3 minutes

This platform has a web and app version, as we have already mentioned, and both are completely free.

The steps that we are going to explain below are going to be done from the computer, but we must know that Jitsi Meet has an application for Android and iOS mobile phones.

Video calls are more comfortable from a laptop, PC, or convertible, even though our mobile has a better front camera, but we leave this to everyone's taste:

1. We enter the official Jitsi Meet website (we leave it just below) and we must focus our eyes on the orange button that says "Start a video call".

1. At that moment, a tab appears indicating that we must add the Chrome extension. It is not mandatory, in fact, it is only used to schedule meetings on our calendar. If we want to install it, click on "Add to Chrome" and a dialog box appears with the permissions that we have to accept and click on "Add extension".
2. If we don't add the extension, because it's not very useful, we continue with the initial plan and just like that, we enter the section, we name the call group and click "Go".

1. Audio and video access permissions are accepted.
2. Next, the window opens and we see what is seen through our camera. You just need to change the audio (depending on the device we can choose front or rear audio) and change the camera
3. We say about changing the camera because in our case, a Surface Pro, the rear camera is activated and not the front one. To make the change we must click on the video camera icon and select the camera It can be alternated throughout the video call, in case we want to show our interlocutors what we have in front of us.

1. To invite the participants to the video call we must copy the link of this and send it by WhatsApp, Telegram, mail, or wherever we want. The recipients click on the link and join the video call. To see the information shown in the following screenshot we must click on the "Information" icon

1. We can add a password to prevent strangers from entering the video call, since it has been discovered that if in Jitsi, you know the name of a meeting, you can enter by typing the link.
2. Once inside the video call we have 2 very important sections, in the lower left corner we have the option to share the screen, open or close the chat and raise your hand to ask for a turn (icon in the shape of a hand).

1. The second section is located in the upper right corner. There we can see the quality of the video call, and if we click on "me", we access several more parameters such as coverage, connection, bitrate, etc.and we can also give ourselves a username.

As we can see, it is not necessary to register, but it is likely that from the second video call they will force us to do so, since the dialog box is somewhat insistent.

Use Jitsi on mobile

Now we go to the mobile section, and that is that Jitsi Meet can also be used from the mobile, whether it is an Android terminal or an iPhone:

Now, once inside, we name the room, we indicate if we want it to be video or voice, we accept the permissions and We share the link through the app that we want.

And so, without registration and for free, it is how we can make video calls with friends, co-workers, family members, etc. We remind you that we can include a maximum of 200 interlocutors, but for this we would have to have a fairly decent fiber optic network.