

The main differences being that you can now set your status as well as the move of all file and video sharing options under the down arrow in the typing panel. Google Hangouts (left) v Google Chat (right)Īs you can see from the screenshots above, the chat interface looks very similar in Chat to what it did in Hangouts. Scammers are still able to use Google Chat as effectively as they did in Google Hangouts. On the face of it, there are very few differences between Google Hangouts and Google Chat. Differences between Google Hangouts and Google Chat They could set up a fake Gmail account and be scamming in Hangouts in a matter of minutes. The fact that every Gmail account could use Hangouts with no further setup was also appealing to scammers. Facilities like turning off the chat history and reporting conversations to Google wasn’t that easy to find unless you were prepared to go digging around. This makes it a surprise choice for scammers as Google could read all of your messages, should they wish to.īecause the platform was so greatly under-utilised, scammers preferred Google Hangouts because it wasn’t well known to the majority of their victims.


Unlike apps such as WhatsApp, Google Hangouts doesn’t offer end to end encryption. The platform never really caught on although it actually does work fairly well. This would see them go head to head with apps such as Facebook Messenger. Google Hangouts was Google’s attempt to get into the social chat market. This article will discuss what this means in terms of continuing to keep safe against the ever increasing online scams. Google Hangouts is due to be retired shortly by Google, being replaced by Google Chat. This is where victims would be taken in order to carry out their scams. For a number of years, Google Hangouts has been a popular location for scammers.
