unobtrusive, even transparent, third-party chat?

April 27, 2020 3:34 PM

A friend and I are watching tv, remote from each other, on tiny laptop screens. For Netflix, Netflix Party works great. But, for other streaming services, it's been hard to find an app that has a tiny, columnar, or transparent window footprint (to have visible while also having a video playing, as enlarged as possible). Does a chat app with a tiny, columnar, or transparent window footprint exist?

Telegram is a bit better than WhatsApp, but the minimum window sizes are pretty large.

I have a mac, and my friend has a pc.

posted by zeek321 to Technology (2 answers total)

Best answer: My partner and I do this! We use Adium (on Macs) as a client that connects to Google Chat. It's very customizable. I'm pretty sure Pidgin is the equivalent for Windows. You have to do some fussing to get it to work but once it works it just works. You can make the windows basically any way you want. WEe use small columns down the site.
posted by jessamyn at 6:01 PM on April 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

For watch parties outside of Netflix, Kast (formerly Rabb.it) does a good job.
posted by thebots at 7:18 PM on April 27, 2020 [1 favorite]