Microsoft makes Skype beach body ready with web browser beta release Microsoft has released a beta web browser version of Skype in the US and UK, which will apparently be rolled out worldwide within the next few weeks. The software giant said Skype for Web could be used by existing State-side and Blighty customers who can now connect to the service via web.skype.com. It means that Skype calls …
Skype for Linux is top-notch for closed proprietary software. In a bizzaro twist, Microsoft is starting to provide better applications for Linux than Google.
Google put their choice GChat, GTalk, and GVoice products into a blender and got the pink slime named Hangouts.
NSA supports Linux...
TFTFY
Don't see so much non-strategic[1] "support" for Linux from NSAFT. Do you? When do you expect "Office for Linux" to be along? lmao! Comprehensive file-format de-obfuscation? As if! Full (and FUDless) support for others' open standards and formats?... etc.. NEVER! ...but a back-doored proprietary chat app which the US splaffed $9bn to buy in specifically to pervert? Ah, well that's different. First rate "support" there. Please use this! Wouldn't want anything nasty like zphone accidentally gaining any traction, now would we?
[1] Governmental mass surveillance "strategic" interests (Skype) differing, of course, from the Microsoft Corporation's commercial monopolism "strategic" interests (Office). Can you see which of those is in play here?
Yet I prefer hangouts any day. Its a single product that surpasses WhatsApp, SMS and Skype.
It doesn't matter where someone is, I can message them, call them, video chat them, or incite them to a group video chat. Nothing else offers this.
And Google support Linux just fine. Download the hangouts chrome extension and you are good to go.
"It doesn't matter where someone is, I can message them, call them, video chat them, or incite them to a group video chat. Nothing else offers this."
Add whiteboard,arrange a meeting, desktop or programme share and email and you then you have Lync,.
“Skype for Linux is top-notch for closed proprietary software. In a bizzaro twist, Microsoft is starting to provide better applications for Linux than Google.”
Of course, the cross-platform support from Skype pre-dates Microsoft's involvement. And “Top-notch” is not how I would describe Microsoft's support of the Linux version: there is still no 64-bit version, and, worse, support for ALSA has been removed under Microsoft's watch. On a typical 64-bit Linux installation, Skype requires a shed-load of multi-architecture support and duplicate 32-bit libraries to be installed, and various hoops to jump through if you don't want to be forced to switch your sound server over to Pulseaudio and allow Mr Pöttering to enter through the back-door.
How many hotels/cafes that don't have Skype preloaded are going to allow arbitrary plugins?
As already noted, it can be loaded in many cases without admin rights - not that any of the hotels I have been in care enough about security that it would be an issue regardless. If you can't bring your own device, you might consider bringing a thumb drive loaded with a portable browser, or the ability to boot to an OS loaded with your own setup.
This post has been deleted by its author
Because if you want to actually talk to somebody, you need to have the same system installed that they use, and they don't have a SIP client set up.
I tried it on my Galaxy Note, and couldn't get it to work reliably. Sound quality was so bad it was unusable, and I couldn't get it to make the phone ring when someone called, it displayed an alert on the screen, but that would require me to look at the screen constantly in the off-chance that someone might call.
This post has been deleted by its author
This post has been deleted by its author
This post has been deleted by its author
Just like "free messaging" is a way to get people off SMS that is slightly harder to intercept, so is Skype an effort to make it much easier to tap into global communication.
Skype started with a peer to peer model that *worked*, but P2P is a swine to intercept so when MS got its UI-destroying paws on it it eventually moved from P2P + super nodes to "everyone talks to a couple of data centres" which is what it is today. You have no control over what is retained, you have no view of who is listening in. and if you believe Microsoft's posturing about privacy to be in your interest you need your head examined (or start checking what the company's DNA is by checking what it has been up to for the last 3 decades or so).
No thanks. There is a wide open market for something new (not too impressed with WebRTC either, but it has potential).
The thing you can't do with it is have a contact list but Skype can't do that reliably these days either, as soon as someone logs in from a mobile their online/offline status in Skype becomes almost random. No offline messages if they're not online either, but they can take a day or two in coming through on Skype. There is so much wrong with Skype but it's become the de facto standard so people put up with it yet if you limit yourself to what works reliably (basically, videocalls, although not always) then there's a load of alternatives.
This post has been deleted by its author
Really, what does changing "software" to "plugin" actually get you?
If they'd genuinely made it browser-only, via HTML5 or whatever, fair enough - even relying on Flash, I suppose - but when you just change it from "you must install the Skype application" to "you must install the Skype plugin" ... why bother? You still need to be able - and willing - to install software for that to work! I suppose it makes sense if this is an intermediate step, before they have a pure HTML5 version?
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
