Prior to the launch of Hangouts, Google had maintained several similar, but technologically separate messaging services and platforms across its suite of products.

However, its increasingly fragmented and non-unified suite of messaging offerings was also facing growing competition from services such as Facebook Messenger, iMessage, and WhatsApp.

A decision was made to scrap the existing Google Talk system and code a new messaging product through a collaboration with multiple development teams.

This has generated many negative user reviews on the Chrome Web Store pages for both the Hangouts extension and the app.

In August 2019, Google announced that the G Suite version of Hangouts would be replaced by "Meet" and "Chat," and push the shut down to June 2020.

[11] In April 2021, Google Chat indeed became free as an "Early Access" service, for users who choose to use it instead of Hangouts.

The reason for the delay appears tied to Google switching away from the XMPP protocol it used, as mentioned above.

In Android 4.4, Hangouts was integrated with text messages sending and receiving functions, which is the default SMS app on the Nexus 5.

For other Android phones, users could choose to open the SMS function when they download the new version of Hangouts via Google Play.

The update also added GIF support and a new location-sharing button, which allowed the user to send their GPS location to their contacts.

Additionally, the tight integration of Google Hangouts and Google+ could have led to the unwilling sharing of personal information with others.