I just got rid of my last Windows computer and switched to Linux full time. I’m forced to use Zoom to attend online lectures at my university and WOW is the Linux client for Zoom terrible compared to Windows. For one, it doesn’t have an option to have the gallery view above the screen share view, only beside it, which wastes screen space. It also forces itself into full screen mode whenever someone starts sharing their screen, AND when I switch it back to windowed mode, it’s not maximized even when it was before. It also launches a blank “join a meeting” window alongside the active meeting every time I click on a meeting from Canvas (my University’s course management system) or switch into a breakout group. Finally, for some reason it forcibly disables KDE’s power management modes whenever it’s active.
Screw you Zoom. Fix your shitty software on Linux!
I have to use cisco webex, and while the executable is not available for linux, I can say that the web interface is equally outright awful.
The audio system doesn’t work if you don’t have a microphone (at least on firefox, if the microphone permission is denied, you don’t get to hear anything).
The video disables itself randomly for bandwidth problems, when nor me nor others are having connection hiccups and then takes its sweet time to come back up.
There is no way to set the webcam as primary “panel” and sometimes the presenter uses it to share hand-written notes. Combined with the fact that half the time the presenter is also sharing their computer screen, the cam’s vibile area is so tiny the text is unreadable.
Finally, the mute button gives a false sense of security: the host of the session can force-enable them from their side.
This feature was highlighted in an incident I escalated with my course to the privacy office at my university.
A professor activated all the microphones and there was this girl crying her eyes off while arguing with her parents. I hope she never realised what happened, she was already too much shaken to handle being humiliated publicly.
I at least managed to find a workaround for the microphone: right after the audio transmission has started, if the microphone permission is removed, the stream halts for a second, then continues without any problems. The mic comes on, but after this trick it stays off as intended and no force-enable can do anything about it.
Webex is the absolute worst. My company got on it when quarantine hit, and I couldn’t join a meeting when signed in (I “didn’t have permission”), can’t join a meeting when NOT signed in, had to log in as a guest every time, and couldn’t screencast a single application - had to share my entire double monitor, which made text too small to read for most folk. It never once worked correctly, not in any of the time I used it.