If you want to host video meetings with friends and family for free though, then your go-to remains Skype, which you can sign-in to with your personal account. If you want group chat and file sharing for your friends and family and use it for group calls, install the Teams client on mobile and sign-in with your personal Microsoft account.
When you choose for Friends and Family, you’ll be directed to both Teams and Skype. If you do try, then you’ll be presented with an option for how you want to use it. You don’t need to sign-up on the web for the free version of Teams for family and friends. Just like the business version of Teams, you can join meetings via the web browser on desktop, and some Teams features, like reactions, have already reached Skype meetings – but others, such as Together mode haven’t been included with Skype. Image #2 Expand Figure 2: Skype with recent Teams improvements (image credit: Steve Goodman) From Microsoft’s perspective, it fills the gap that WhatsApp groups or Facebook groups have been trying to fill but usually struggle because in most families they’ll often be a few people who don’t use Facebook and WhatsApp groups struggle with multiple threads both are not great when sharing files and other useful information. The newest free Teams offering is designed to help connect friends and family together – to organize family gatherings, football practice, and other groups outside of work. Fundamentally though, it’s a chat-based collaboration tool and every version of Teams has group chat at its core. Teams is a service built on top of several Microsoft products and depending on whether you are using it for work, home, or school, it has different features available. This might seem confusing compared to Zoom and similar apps, but there’s a good reason for it. If you are signing up for a free account to use with Microsoft Teams, you might see a few options available.