5 Video Conferencing Platforms to win over, as India bans Zoom over privacy concerns

Zoom has grabbed the maximum eyeballs during this coronavirus pandemic. Everyone used the video conferencing platform. Some manage a team remotely on Zoom, others use the video chat platform to attend virtual classes at home. No wonder, even weddings took place on Zoom video calls. But when Zoom caught red-handed while data breaching, most of the people uninstalled and requested to ban it.

Zoom is reported to have a bug that can be abused intentionally to leak information of users to third parties. After this petition was filed to ban zoom and now the supreme court has also asked the government to take a look at that.

But there is no reason to get worried as there are other platforms also working on the same to give their audience the best experience of Video Conferencing, without any privacy concern. These few Video Conferencing platforms are made only to give the personal touch to their potential customers.

Here are the best 5 Video Conferencing Platforms which are safe and user friendly at the safe time-

FLOOR by 10Times

FLOOR is a video conferencing solution built by Noida-based events discovery platform 10Times. Aiming to capture the untapped market of video conferencing for carrying out seminars, summits, or even facilitating tradeshows or market selling, the application offers video conferencing of varying types, thus attempting to establish itself as a one-stop solution for both personal and professional video-based communications. Professionals need to meet in order to unlock new opportunities and forge relationships.

The USP of the app lies in the additional features available during a video conference, such as audience polls, live question-answers, and even using AI-driven user matching algorithms. They have grabbed interest from different sectors -corporates, education and healthcare sectors. Their target is to achieve 5-10 million minutes of live networking on the platform in the next 30 days, with further scaling of the revenue model in the coming months.

Free access to -

No time limit for calls

Unlimited participants per meeting

Google Meet by Google

Google Meet is a video conferencing app. It is the business-oriented version of Google's Hangouts platform and is suitable for businesses of all sizes. The solution enables users to make video calls with up to 30 users per high-definition video meeting. The app allows users to join pre-scheduled meetings from calendar events, choose a link, enter meeting code and even dial in from their phones if the invitation includes a phone number.

Google Meet integrates with G Suite versions of Google Calendar and Gmail and shows the complete list of participants and scheduled meetings. It shows a "join" button for users to connect to the meeting and provides options to mute and turn off the video during the meeting. Google Meet allows users to dial in phone numbers to access meetings, thus enabling users with slow or no internet connection to call in. However, dial-in numbers are only available to the G Suite enterprise edition customers.

Free access to -

60-minute call

25 participants per meeting

Say Namaste, by Inscripts

Say Namaste is a video conferencing software developed by a team of 50 developers working at the Mumbai- based company, Inscripts. Within two days of its initial launch, the online platform has garnered 5,00,000 users as per the company’s spokesperson.

With over ten years of experience in building communication products, Inscripts hopes to challenge existing applications by promoting its multi-party video conferencing solution for enterprises and personal users alike. The software also lays great emphasis on file-sharing in a chat window along with live screen sharing possibilities.

Free access to -

No time limit for calls

50 participants per meeting

Cisco Webex Meetings

One of the most popular and trusted video conferencing solutions that make video and audio conferencing possible with sharing, chat, and more. Video conferencing is as simple and seamless as meeting in person.

Share your screen, document, spreadsheet, or application with everyone. Hosts can record the meeting so others can get up to speed later. Schedule and join meetings from where you work. Everyone you invite can join your online meeting, no matter how they’re connecting, even guests.

Free access to -

40-minute call

50 participants per meeting

GoToMeeting, by LogMeIn

GoToMeeting, a web-hosted service, is an online meeting, desktop sharing, and video conferencing software package. It enables the user to meet online with customers, clients or colleagues via the Internet in real-time.

GoToMeeting offers complete security to each meeting. It includes privacy and security features such as Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption in transit, AES-256 bit encryption at rest of cloud recordings, transcriptions, and meeting notes, SOC2 Type II + BSI C5 certification, TRUSTe Verified Privacy, Rich Based Authentication and are GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA readiness.

Join or host a meeting from any device – PC, smartphone or tablet. Get crystal clear full band VoIP audio or phone call.

Free access to -

40-minute call

3 participants per meeting

In the past few weeks, Zoom has had a hard time, due to security and privacy issues, and people started looking for Zoom alternatives. But it's not only zoom, the competitor platforms too have privacy issues.

January 2020, Cisco has discovered a “high-severity” vulnerability in its Webex video conferencing platform and fixed the issue. Consumer Reports evaluated privacy policies of video conferencing platforms and found that these platforms may collect more data than consumers realize.

When you allow any app to access your camera, mic and storage to join a video conference, you can face several potential threats to your privacy and security. Here are four strategies for keeping your personal information safe while video conferencing.

Tips to stay private in video conferencing

Attend voice call whenever possible – Meeting admin can record your webcam, PC or mobile screen or document you are screencasting. It's better to attend with voice only, whenever possible. Turn off your camera and mic when listening to others. Share documents such as PPT or PDF over email with colleagues.

Share less – Whenever is possible, join the meeting as a guest and share less personal details such as email, mobile no, etc. If you access the platform to utilise more features, minimize your digital footprint. Choose your platform carefully and stick to that for each meeting. This way you can avoid providing access to your PC or mobile to multiple platforms.

Use burner email – You can create a dedicated burner email for all your video conferencing. Do not use your email which you use for important communications such as banking, social media and healthcare.

Smart password – The habit of having a similar password for everything is not a wise idea. You must create a complicated and different password for your personal emails and banking. For video conferencing, you should have a different password, this way if hackers get access to your burner email and password, even then they won't be able to access your personal details.