I'm on OSX.<p>Occasionally when you click back to focus Chrome, your focus stays in Hangouts, then you can't use Chrome's keyboard shortcuts, as you are in Hangouts instead.<p>Otherwise, hopefully this works better than the old extension - when starting Chrome it kept not logging in without being disabled then renabled.<p>Also, why the big white box on start - couldn't that be the contact list?
Why does this software feel so horribly unpolished?<p>This new version doesn't even work at all when you've set the chrome zoom standard to anything other than 100%.<p>We use Hangouts for team communication a lot, but the chrome extension is so unstable and has weird issues that we joke that it must have been built "by the best interns money can buy".<p>Sadly, besides Facebook Messenger, its the best cross device chat platform that isn't Hipchat and works with most of our clients that use Apps for Business.
Nothing against Chrome extensions, but I have yet to see an messaging application that competes with Pidgin. It's simple, beautiful, and perfect at what it does.<p>Unfortunately, Google doesn't permit Pidgin to use its current protocols. So while XMPP still works great for one-on-one chat, my group messages relegated to the Hangouts app. (As are video and voice, but that's much more understandable.) Which is odd, since XMPP supports multi-user chat.<p>I really like Hangouts for video chats, but I wish they'd allow me to outsource all text-based messaging to Pidgin. It's just a more elegant solution... and Google would still reap all the advertising information they can glean from my messages anyway.
I'm on windows, and It's terrible!
I preferred the extension much more.<p>I have this terrible floating icon in the middle of my screen. It's as ugly as Facebook Messenger on Android.<p>In the settings you can disable "Always on top". But then it requires you 2 clicks to open the Hangouts app. One click on the Windows taskbar, and then one on the icon when it appears.<p>Stupid developers! How about keeping the OS the way it meant to be used, with the tasks inside the taskbar. Not floating windows everywhere.