Slack and Microsoft Teams are popular work chat apps, but which is better for your privacy and security? Here’s what to know about the cost to your private data
TLDR: they’re both bad, but it might be interesting to know what each one does
Security aside (because that’s my employers problem), Teams is just aweful.
The UX is all over the place, likely because of the feature creep forcing a lot of dev departments to collaborate.
It just does too much. I don’t need an all on one solution, I need a communication tool.
The chat looks like WhatsApp, not like a proper professional comms channel. Maybe there’s a setting buried somewhere.
The meetings are more miss than hit. For every working meeting I have 5 meetings where something doesn’t work. Multiple retries to join; or it picks the wrong mic, speaker and/or camera; or chat within the meeting doesn’t work for some participants so they can’t share or see links; video streams being disconnected and reconnected depending on who currently speaks (which looks extremels annoying); and probably a ton more I zoned out).
Slack on the other hand mostly just works. As a chat tool. What it is supposed to be.
I had the displeasure of managing Teams for an IT client of mine, and to say it’s a clusterfuck is putting it charitably.
It is almost impossible to change the user. A basic, rudimentary function that should be a simple matter of signing out and signing back in. Nope, doesn’t work. You have to reinstall Teams to get that working.
Oh, and reinstalling is an ordeal itself. That usually doesn’t work, either. You have to manually delete the installation directory and app data cache, and for whatever dumbshit reason, it doesn’t install to program files, it installs to some obscure directory in the user profile.
God help you if you rename a user. It retains the old user details until you sign out.
Trying to share a link to join a team never works.
These are just off the top of my head and I don’t want to continue because it’s stressing me out.
As much as a lot of that hate it warranted, I’d say the install location isn’t so much a Teams issue as it is a Windows issue and how it handles user-level vs system-level installs. Obviously still a Microsoft problem, but important to note.
For extremely large meetings (a few hundred people), Zoom might still have the edge. I am always surprised how well they handle that. Even if it’s not moderated and anyone is allowed to talk at any time. They have some very good algorithms in regards to video stream routing.
Meet got a lot better in that regard too, however. Before COVID Meet wasn’t really usable for more than a dozen people (IMO). Now it can also easily handle one or two hundred.
And yes, for the quick team meeting or a short chat it’s just so convenient. Share link and go. It remembers the settings from last time and you are ready. The only thing that still confuses the shit out of me is that when more than a specific amount of participants are in the meeting, new members join muted. If I am late to meetings I tend to miss that detail and then need a few seconds to realize that no one hears me. I would probably prefer if it was consistent (you always join muted or you never join muted … or you actively have to decide or something).
Microsoft are incredibly talented… at buying software that’s great and then ruining it! Live Comms Server was bought then they bought Skype, both were good, and they slowly but surely turned into the Shambles known as Teams.
They have quite the record of pulling off this stunt.
Teams does too much but slack is just a chat app? That’s just not even close to true. Slack does way more than teams. Which is why I wish my company would drop teams so I don’t have two messaging apps to worry about.
I do have to say I almost never have an issue with teams calls. I’m pretty sure most IT departments just do a shit job of configuring it because if it was the app, it would happen to everyone. 99% of my teams calls work without any issues, including big meetings with dozens of people.
Security aside (because that’s my employers problem), Teams is just aweful.
The UX is all over the place, likely because of the feature creep forcing a lot of dev departments to collaborate.
It just does too much. I don’t need an all on one solution, I need a communication tool.
The chat looks like WhatsApp, not like a proper professional comms channel. Maybe there’s a setting buried somewhere.
The meetings are more miss than hit. For every working meeting I have 5 meetings where something doesn’t work. Multiple retries to join; or it picks the wrong mic, speaker and/or camera; or chat within the meeting doesn’t work for some participants so they can’t share or see links; video streams being disconnected and reconnected depending on who currently speaks (which looks extremels annoying); and probably a ton more I zoned out).
Slack on the other hand mostly just works. As a chat tool. What it is supposed to be.
I had the displeasure of managing Teams for an IT client of mine, and to say it’s a clusterfuck is putting it charitably.
It is almost impossible to change the user. A basic, rudimentary function that should be a simple matter of signing out and signing back in. Nope, doesn’t work. You have to reinstall Teams to get that working.
Oh, and reinstalling is an ordeal itself. That usually doesn’t work, either. You have to manually delete the installation directory and app data cache, and for whatever dumbshit reason, it doesn’t install to program files, it installs to some obscure directory in the user profile.
God help you if you rename a user. It retains the old user details until you sign out.
Trying to share a link to join a team never works.
These are just off the top of my head and I don’t want to continue because it’s stressing me out.
Fuck Teams.
As much as a lot of that hate it warranted, I’d say the install location isn’t so much a Teams issue as it is a Windows issue and how it handles user-level vs system-level installs. Obviously still a Microsoft problem, but important to note.
You’d think Microsoft software would work optimally on a Microsoft operating system, but, quite often, it operates in the shittiest, kludgiest ways.
“I created a spreadsheet with that info.”
“where is it?”
“It’s in my ‘recently used files’ in teams…”
“Yes but where can I share that document?”
“I think it’s in my OneDrive? I don’t see it there.”
“Let me check Sharepoint - I don’t see it there…”
“I’ll just email you a screenshot.”
Google Meet is the gold standard of meeting software in terms of UI/UX in my opinion. The layout is consistent and reliable.
For extremely large meetings (a few hundred people), Zoom might still have the edge. I am always surprised how well they handle that. Even if it’s not moderated and anyone is allowed to talk at any time. They have some very good algorithms in regards to video stream routing.
Meet got a lot better in that regard too, however. Before COVID Meet wasn’t really usable for more than a dozen people (IMO). Now it can also easily handle one or two hundred.
And yes, for the quick team meeting or a short chat it’s just so convenient. Share link and go. It remembers the settings from last time and you are ready. The only thing that still confuses the shit out of me is that when more than a specific amount of participants are in the meeting, new members join muted. If I am late to meetings I tend to miss that detail and then need a few seconds to realize that no one hears me. I would probably prefer if it was consistent (you always join muted or you never join muted … or you actively have to decide or something).
The host has the ability to make all attendees attend mute.
But it isn’t a consistent feature yes. I am guessing due to different preferences for many.
Microsoft are incredibly talented… at buying software that’s great and then ruining it! Live Comms Server was bought then they bought Skype, both were good, and they slowly but surely turned into the Shambles known as Teams.
They have quite the record of pulling off this stunt.
Teams does too much but slack is just a chat app? That’s just not even close to true. Slack does way more than teams. Which is why I wish my company would drop teams so I don’t have two messaging apps to worry about.
I do have to say I almost never have an issue with teams calls. I’m pretty sure most IT departments just do a shit job of configuring it because if it was the app, it would happen to everyone. 99% of my teams calls work without any issues, including big meetings with dozens of people.
Yeah at some point you could just use discord wich actually works…