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Google Allo For Chrome Finally Arrives, But Only For Android Users (engadget.com)
Google Allo, the chat app that arrived on the iPhone and Android devices last year, now has a web counterpart. Head of product for Allo and video chat app Duo, Amit Fulay, tweeted: "Allow for web is here! Try it on Chrome today. Get the latest Allo build on Android before giving it a spin." Engadget reports: To give it a go, you'll need to open the Allo app on your device and use that to scan a QR code you can generate at this link. Once you've scanned the code, Allo pulls up your chat history and mirrors all the conversations you have on your phone. Most of Allo's key features, including smart replies, emoji, stickers and most importantly the Google Assistant are all intact here. In fact, this is the first time you can really get the full Google Assistant experience through the web; it's been limited to phones and Google Home thus far.
Listen very carefully, for I shall say this only once.
ALLO! http://ftpguide.com/ALLO.htm
Another app I'll never use.
Sounds complicated. I'll stick with Hangouts. Multi-device, web and app available, group chats and single chats, audio and video..... Google should buy that if they want a good messenger.
oh.. wait a sec..
bickerdyke
There is a huge demand for this new chat app, this is going to be a big hit! All the people who use google+ will also want to use Allo
this post contain no useful information, no need to mod it down
I'll take the banana, thankyouverymuch.
These days, every chat provider is just a vertical, proprietary walled off service. First they snare you with the kewl features, then they scrape your contacts. Then they start grabbing your GPS location. Then they start pushing ads and services at you "relevant to your conversations and location". Then they start integrating features of product B until the chat software is a bloated mess. Then they calve off product B into its own app but make it mandatory you install it as part of a suite. Then a new chat app comes along which claims to do away with the bloat, rinse and repeat.
Just implement a secure, federated, open protocol and stop this nonsense. At that point chat can be part of the phone software stack. Apps can compete on their front ends and other functions they offer.
So, in order to use this on my device, I have to go into an already installed app (so why do I need this?). Then in that app I have to use the camera to scan a QR code generated by a link, meaning it has to be on the screen of a *different* device. One that I can't use the end result on anyway.
So I need two devices to run code in the app so I don't have to use the app. TFA in this case means Totally Fucking Awful. Who signed off on this shitty process?
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
if it supported the standard SIP in addition to its other features then I personally would use it and I think it would get traction.
SIP support (voice and video calling) would mean I could use it for the work extension and home without multiple clients.
without SIP or some compelling feature its a also ran experiment that some will care about...
and iMessage, both of which already have a gazillion users already. Not counting FB messenger...
How Google continues to screw up this lucrative sector amazes me, with Android and Chrome as a base they should be cleaning up, especially since M$ as essentially killed-off Skype by making it unusable (except for business users).
It was good while it lasts!
What a strange coincidence. That's exactly what your mother said!
Would someone explain exactly why I would want or need this? I just don't see the need and I certainly don't want another google app taking up space I could use for something really useful.
Where are the sources and best also already a port as a native Linux client?
This XKCD needs updating... or does Allo have so few users it doesn't even register on the radar?
Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
and Line, and that other one I've forgotten that China uses.
Nobody will use this because Google already knows too much. Sign up to a Google play store and a phone number is now compulsory.... "to prove you're not a robot".... yeh right, that's why Google play needs that.....
Google have become such a creepy data grabber, I hope they get slapped down hard. As it is I avoid their search, and use disposable addresses where they force me to register to minimize Google's data snarfing..
of having to send all my very private and personal conversations to Google manually - but now Allo will do it for me.
I just wrote a comment grousing about yet-another-walled-off-chat-app. But then I did a brief search, and...
Surprise: Allo apparently uses the Signal protocol, which is an open standard. More, it's a standard that included end-to-end encryption. Unless Google deliberately and specifically broke compatibility, it should be possible for an Allo user to communicate with a Signal user, or anyone else with an app that supports the Signal protocol.
At the moment, I stick to SMS because that lets me send a message to someone without caring about what app they happen to have installed. Everyone can receive an SMS. Kind of pathetic, but there we are. But I use Signal to send those SMS messages, so if someone has a Signal-compatible app, it should automatically upgrade the communications channel.
Here's hoping: If this is the beginning of a movement back to open protocols, the world will be a better place...
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
"Shut up, nospam007. You are a stupid retard."
It takes one to know one. :-)
"I turn 24 the other day, "
Then get the fuck off my lawn!
Google after all this time, finally figured out how to integrate and setup a working WebRTC system. I understand their pain, for something that could have been so much simpler. Ohh wait, they where involved in making WebRTC? I retract, no sympathy from me.
Allo's key features, including smart replies, emoji, stickers and most importantly the Google Assistant are all intact here.
Back in my day, we used to chat using actual words, which we wrote ourselves.
In fact, it even blocks non-Chrome Chromium browsers such as Opera etc!
Yeah, yeah, all the comments about yet another chat app, and how Google has 20 of them...
Allo is actually pretty nice, with the integrated assistant and all. My kids are all using it, but the mobile-only aspect killed me. I'm old, and I hate typing on a mobile keyboard, plus I spend a big chunk of my waking hours in front of a real keyboard. I like being able to use my phone when I'm away from the computer, but it's so much better to have a real keyboard, where I can type 100 wpm, rather than 2.
This will make it a lot easier for me to chat with my kids, and I may even start using it with other people.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I am surprised that Google is using the same name for this under Chrome. Google has an extensive history of changing names so as to maximize confusion and doubt. It is probably the only company that seems to be keen on promoting FUD about themselves.
Post says "...tweeted: "Allow for web is here! ..." Allo, not allow.
Browser-specific? What is this, the 1990s and Microsoft? I don't use Chrome.
And tied to a specific device, which has to be operational? One of the reasons we love and use Hangouts is because it works no matter what the state of your other device(s) is. Sometimes phones break or become inoperable. The fact that I can still hop in a web browser (ANY web browser) and still access my text messages (Google Voice) and IMs is a lifesaver.
This is boneheaded, and makes Allo even more DOA than it was before.
It's for people who already use this app on a phone and want to additionally use a desktop or laptop computer with its larger screen and physical keyboard. In other words, it's a counterpart to WhatsApp web access.
I think bradley13's point is that almost everybody with a valid reason to communicate with bradley13 already carries a device with a cellular radio on a plan with at least several hundred monthly sent and received messages, and those few who do not (such as damn_registrars and irrational-design) can easily acquire one.
But I wonder how many people in bradley13's circle of friends have North American pay-as-you-go plans. Carriers in the U.S. and Canada bill both the sending account and the receiving account for each message. T-Mobile, for example, charges 10 cents for each sent message and 10 cents for each received message.
Pretty ubiquitous
Does turning 24 come with grammar or etiquette training? No? That is patently obvious.
Now read very carefully, I will write this only once.
Why would anyone use something other than Signal or other end-to-end encrypted chat apps?
That, and the fact that Google just keeps orphaning projects to move onto their next 'new thing'.
Google Voice is unavailable outside the United States and still requires a phone number. Receiving phone calls requires either a Google Voice number or a Project Fi number, which is also available outside the United States. (Source) Even if you are among the minority (~5%) of people who do live in the United States, signing up for Google Voice requires a phone number to which to forward calls. (Source)
which is also available outside the United States
This should be "which is also unavailable outside the United States" as stated in the source.
Who pays to store encrypted chat logs? I imagine that the provider of a storage facility would be unwilling to store information that it cannot decrypt because information that it cannot decrypt isn't useful for choosing the most relevant advertisements to show to the provider's users. Or would you and everyone with whom you communicate be fine with a paywall around the storage of chat logs?
So it's like Hangouts, but with the extra inconvenience of being tied to your mobile number instead of something easily memorized.
And with the added pain of REQUIRING YOUR PHONE TO USE THE WEB VERSION.
It's a pain and does nothing more of value than existing applications. Why does it even exist?
Can't see it take off with all the new kewl millennial kids otherwise
http://saveie6.com/
Why even release something like this, which only works on Chrome? It seems utterly pointless and arrogant to call it "web compatible", when it's artificially not even compatible with other Blink-based browsers, uses upcoming non-even-close-to-standard-yet tech (and doesn't even have to), and took so damn long to make in spite of that.
Google should just give up on this facade that they "care about the web" already. They're really no better than Microsoft was in the IE6 era anymore. From not making Hangouts web compatible after years to recently futzing with GMail and breaking its H2 support, to Google Fonts pushing to relax the OpenType standard instead of fixing their shitty fonts, to YouTube constantly breaking, I have to wonder whether they can even handle their own properties, let alone the web at large.