Zoom is happy to announce that it is slowly rolling out end-to-end encryption for both its paid and free subscribers.
Earlier this year, COVID-19 struck fears in the hearts of people around the world. It forced offices to suspend work. It closed down schools and operations of major factories. Not long after that, the same worries people turned to video conferencing apps to continue their normal lives.
The company which benefitted from the great exodus to the online world was Zoom. It had its fair share of birth pains, especially on the security and stability of the app. With these shortcomings, other video conferencing apps immediately jumped the gun in overtaking Zoom. Nevertheless, the company remained steadfast and still own the lion share in the market.
Zoom now has end-to-end encryption
Earlier this year, the main pain point of Zoom users was the app’s security. The company itself admitted that it coursed some of the video calls through servers in China. As a result, it came under fire from several users around the world who did not trust the country’s data privacy.
Zoom immediately went to work and announced a week after that it was working on delivering end-to-end encryption for users. Initially, it was planning to offer the service only to paid subscribers. However, it went under fire again from free users so Zoom immediately retracted its statements.
Five months after, Zoom is making good on its promise of end-to-end encryption. It announced in a press release that the feature is available to all users whether on Windows or Mac. Users just have to ensure that their desktop client is up to date or is in 5.4.0 version.
Android users can also get the update rollout. However, iOS users still have to wait for the AppStore to approve and publish the latest patch.
Technical preview from users
The company will actively solicit feedback from users based on this new update. It notes that users will have to sacrifice some features in order to enable end-to-end encryption.
Activating the high-security mode disables join before host, cloud recording, streaming, live transcription, Breakout Rooms, polling, 1:1 private chat, and meeting reaction. As such Zoom has reminded users to only activate the feature only for meetings that need extra security.
Eventually, all these disabled functions of Zoom will soon be allowed with the end-to-end encryption mode. The company just has to test out some glitches that it might encounter with this technical preview around the world.
Image from Visuals/ Unsplash