Since Google (News - Alert)+ Hangouts was first rolled out, Google has been working hard to make the service more and more useful. Over the course of its life, the service has been adding and changing various features. The latest changes to the features actually allow for people to use Google+ Hangouts even when users are not officially on the Hangouts page.

People using the service have been able to make calls through the desktop solution as well as the add-on to the Chrome browser. Google also recently announced on a company blog post that users will now be able to make Google+ Hangouts calls directly through their Gmail accounts.

Google has actually had to bring this particular feature back from the grave. Early on in the evolution of Gmail, these phone calls through the e-mail inbox were made available. But when Google+ Hangouts became its own entity, that function was taken out of the Gmail accounts. According to Google, enough people have been asking for that feature to be added back that the Internet company has decided to listen to its users.

The company announced that in addition to the return of calling through Gmail, users can now actually make calls to the U.S. and Canada for free from any country that currently has access to Google+ Hangouts. The company also said that international calling rates are still very, very low when comparing them to rates you can get from long distance calling companies.

Google has also changed the way the desktop calling experience will appear from now on. The desktop solution will now also allow you to add any number of different people to a call. Users can also add a little entertainment to the calls by playing sound effects with the Google Effects application. None of these changes are huge on their own, but together they do improve the experience.