Over the past few weeks, cracks have begun to appear in the security of the video-calling tools we evidently can no longer live without. None of them, including the likes of Zoom and Google Meet, secure your calls end-to-end, which means your data can be potentially accessed and viewed by these companies.
Brave browser wants to be the privacy panacea in this increasingly crowded telecommunications space, and to do that, it’s adding an end-to-end video-calling service. Called Brave Together, it lets users place unlimited, private one-on-one and group video calls right from the browser.
Our Nightly version for North America now features Brave Together, our private and unlimited video calling service based on open source @jitsinews. Click on the widget & start connecting with friends/colleagues. Feedback welcome at https://t.co/SWLpcAKZDq for this trial version. pic.twitter.com/UPFE13Z0xB
— Brave Software (@brave) May 26, 2020
Brave is trialing the new update on its experimental Nightly version in North America. At the moment, it’s limited to its desktop client, while support for Android and iOS is expected to arrive later. Users will be able to launch a session either from the widget available on the landing page or by heading over to the Brave Together website. You don’t need an account to take advantage of it either, as you can invite and join through a simple link.
Brave Together is fundamentally a branch of the open-source video-conferencing platform Jitsi. In addition to end-to-end encryption, it allows you to create four-word meeting links, and since these can’t be easily traced, intruders will have a much harder time hacking into your conferences.
There are a host of other options available on Brave Together including screen sharing, video quality controls, text chat, sending an alert by “raising your hand,” and more. At the time of writing, a few Jitsi features, such as the ability to blur the background, were not present on Brave Together.
Plus, it’s worth noting that end-to-end encryption for group calls on Jitsi is still in development. It’s unclear when will it roll out to Brave Together itself. We’ve reached out to Brave for the same and we’ll update the story once we hear back.
Brave hasn’t commented on pricing either, and it remains to be seen whether it will cap the “unlimited” perk later on.
Brave Together is not quite as dynamic or integrated as incumbents such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet, at least in the enterprise world. Instead, it will likely present itself as a compelling option for casual get-togethers or for more privacy-centric businesses. On top of that, since it’s still in a development phase, so it could be weeks before its public release.