With online course delivery, Google Meet has become a key piece of technology at CUE. As the number of users and their varied uses increase, a number of enhancements have been identified for Google Meet. These enhancements have been developed in various Chrome Extensions to modify or add to the functionality of Google Meet in a desktop web browser.
In reviewing an extension, we look for a few key things:
- A privacy policy is published
- The permissions requested appear to be justifiable
- Source code is made available
- Popularity and acceptance in the Chrome Store
The following Google Chrome Extensions have undergone a basic review process and appear to be non-malicious (our review ensures that a privacy policy is published, that the permissions requested appear to be justifiable, and that source code is made available; this should not be taken as an endorsement or a recommendation to install the Extensionextension):
Popular Extensions meeting review requirements:
- Google Meet Grid View [no privacy policy] - Arranges all participants in a Google Meet session in a grid view layout instead of one of the default layouts. Regarding the lack of a privacy policy, they state, "This extension does not track any user data, and therefore does not have a detailed privacy policy." It only asks for permissions to "Read and change your data on meet.google.com" which is entirely reasonable.
- Nod - Reactions for Google Meet [privacy policy] - Adds simple emoji reactions in a Google Meet session for muted participants.
Other Extensions that have been reviewed:
Google Meet Enhancement Suite - Grid & more [privacy policy] - Provided a variety of functionality including grid view.No longer available in the Chrome Store.Google Meet Attendance [no privacy policy]: review- An extension which provides a way to record attendance in a Google Meet session.Review not yet passed due to lack of privacy policy and questionable requirement to access browser history
Please be awarenote:
- Install the extensions using the links above to avoid the risk of being redirected to malicious extensions posing falsely as any of the above.
- The features provided by these extensions may overlap or conflict. Please only install the extensions that offer features you require.
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