Google Meet premium video conferencing app is now free for everyone

• Google Meet was a paid feature of the G Suite service until now, but Google is making it free saying it is an essential service.
• By making Google Meet free, the company is taking on Zoom which has gained popularity during the Coronavirus crisis.
• The free rollout of Google Meet will happen gradually over the next few weeks.

Google Meet, the premium video conferencing app that was available only for G Suite customers, is now free for everyone. This means anyone with a Google account will be able to use the Meet app for free.

Until now, Google Meet was available only to G Suite customers which is a paid service, with plans starting at ₹125 per user per month. Now, it is available to all Google users, regardless of whether they are G Suite customers or not.

“Today, we’re making Google Meet, our premium video conferencing product, free for everyone, with availability rolling out over the coming weeks,” Javier Soltero, Vice President and GM, G Suite, said in blog post.

“It’s important that everyone who uses Meet has a secure and reliable experience from the start, so beginning next week, we’ll be gradually expanding its availability to more and more people over the following weeks,” Soltero said, explaining that the free rollout will happen over time.

How can I use Google Meet for free?

To use Google Meet for free, all you need is a Google account. Once the free availability is enabled for your account, you can download the Google Meet app or visit meet.google.com and start making video calls.

The Google Meets app is available for both iOS and Android.

It is worth noting that all the users in the video call will need a Google account. This restricting is likely to prevent strangers showing up in your video calls – something that has happened multiple times with popular video conferencing app Zoom.

Additionally, Google Meet also has a restriction of 100 participants per video call without any time limit, although Google may restrict it to 60 minutes after September 30, 2020.

Google Duo is another app that can be used for video calling, although it has a limit of just 12 users. On the positive side, it only needs your phone number and not a Google account, and it has no time limit, unlike Google Meet which restricts calls to 60 minutes (this limit is temporarily waived off).

Due to the Coronavirus pandemic and lockdown in several countries around the world, Google Meet usage has jumped by 30 times. Google says it is now hosting 3 billion minutes of video meetings and adding roughly 3 million new users every day on its Meet service, and its user base has crossed 100 million already.

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