Say Namaste – An Indian alternative to Zoom and Skype, How to use it?

Making rounds on the Internet already, Say Namaste is an app that is being developed as an answer to Zoom and Skype for video conferencing. Zoom has been one of the highly used apps in the current time due to the COVID-19 lockdown and companies adopting the work-from-home policies to continue their businesses, and the discussions with team members are being done through video conferences. Skype is an old player but the way Zoom has picked itself up for its simplicity and ease of usage, the number of users possible, it has no match right now.

Inscripts, a company from Mumbai has developed Say Namaste, an app that currently is only web-based and the apps for smartphones are being developed as well. The company was known to make CometChat, an app that is used by over 50000+ websites, and it is a solution for website developers and owners to add a chatbox on their website or app. Now, Say Namaste is a product that going to be a great solution for those who don’t trust Zoom for its data sharing policies and the country of origin of the app.

For the web part, the app is extremely easy to use. You just have to go to saynamaste.in website and you will have two options – to create a meeting or join a meeting that is being hosted by someone already. If you want to start a meeting, just tap on the first option and enter your name, and you would get the details to share with people who you want to do the video call with. The details would be as follows.

Namaste! Meeting URL: https://www.saynamaste.in/join/XXX-XXXX-XXX Meeting ID:XXX-XXXX-XXX Code:XXXX

There are two things – the Meeting ID, and the Code. Entering these two would let you enter the video conference, and you will be asked for the permission of two things – Microphone, and Camera. You will have to give those permissions for the call to happen. Later during the call, you can share the screen with the other members in the call, mute the microphone, and even turn off the camera, and there is a chatbox for text-based messages if there is something important to be typed and shared.

We currently haven’t seen the T&C or the Privacy Policy to know about the data usage by the company, but this is just a start, so it will surely be scrutinized and checked by security professionals before being adopted by large organizations for wider use.

Even the government of India had announced a prize for someone who develops a video conferencing app with specific requirements but it seems like Inscripts is not doing that as the app might be private and won’t be affiliated to the government.