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Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

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Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#431

Post by biot »

washadjeffmad wrote: post #427

I've never used Skype. Is there something it does better or differently than any other VOIP/messaging client that's made their poor Linux support such a popular issue, other than it was better before Windows bought it? My current daily means of communication on Linux is Google Voice/Hangouts, but I've also used others over the years, like GnomeMeeting/Ekiga, TeamViewer, and TeamSpeak. They've all worked fairly easily…

There is one thing that Skype is particularly good at that other VoIP/messaging clients aren't: talking to users who have Skype accounts. Your question is little different than suggesting there are many alternative social networks to Facebook, so why don't people just use those instead?

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#432

Post by Klathmon »

stormbrew wrote: post #429
Klathmon wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because software isn't moving in a way that you personally want doesn't mean it's wrong or that it was objectively "better" before. We don't have apps that work offline? Maybe look around more. FFS half of the web apps i use work fine offline. And claiming that there has been no innovation in the OS space for years is silly. There is plenty of innovation, it's just that people don't like change and will instantl…

> And I much prefer current hangouts to the old google talk plugin. "small", "light"? Did you ever use it. You needed to download and install 2 separate programs to get Google Talk video chat working. Sometimes you'd need to do some port forwarding bullshit just to get it to work. I'm pretty sure the GP is referring to the native google talk client that gtalk was originally launched with. It was indeed a very simple…

And you needed to install that client, then install the video and voice chat plugin if you wanted that, then sign in to your account (and if you had 2 factor auth you needed to jump through some other hoops).

It just seems like people will rewrite history. It was cumbersome, had strange scaling issues on many of my PCs at the time, didn't work on macs, you needed to just do it yourself on linux (and i'm not even sure if videochat worked on linux...).

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#433

Post by gknoy »

pentae wrote: post #122

What I don’t understand is - Why is there not a serious competitor to Skype? If there was a cross-platform Skype clone that worked on OSX, Linux, Windows, iOS and Android that was stable and secure - the whole world would jump onto it. All it has to do is not be a bloated piece of crap like Skype. Instead, everything else out there is fragmented. We’re all waiting, get on it already!

My family and I have had more success with Facebook Messenger's video chat than with Skype: the people we want to talk to (grandparents, aunts, etc) are already on Facebook, and the only trouble is that you have to determine whether to accept on your phone or your computer.

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#434

Post by fweespeech »

ultramancool wrote: post #420
fweespeech wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I know a better way because I run a 7 figure a year project and the codebase isn't a mess. :/

In my experience it mostly just boils down to having the right processes and being strongly motivated to do things right rather than push things out the door as quickly as possible. Assuming superiors have your back, this is doable. It's when they don't or when the developers lose or completely lack motivation that things start to fall apart. Lack of motivation often means lack of process, lack of process often means…

Pretty much.

Honestly, the only reason the codebase isn't a mess is its a single project I've been able to tightly control and enforce things on [because its 100% my problem if something goes wrong].

The rest of our codebase is filled with drama. :/

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#435

Post by khedoros »

matzipan wrote: post #382
anexprogrammer wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Email was the only other useful part. Thunderbird is not exactly dead, just forgotten. I still run it, since I de-googled, though sadly it's also turning into bloatware. Netscape had a chat thing, html publisher, and I think something else. WebRTC, pocket, the webIDE, even things like the dom inspector, style editor etc and pdf are bloat for most mortals. Perfect for some "official" plugins. They managed it for the F…

Why is WebRTC bloat? A lot of people us it for video calls nowadays. Pocket is a neat solution for avoiding having lots of tabs eating your memory, which in turn ends up causing page swapping and messing with your experience. "pdf are bloat for most mortals" That's alright, it means in 99% cases it's just a very small javascript file on your disk. No harm done.

Bloat is relative and subjective. I've never used WebRTC, Pocket, or Loop/Hello, so I'd consider them bloat. On the other hand, I need to deal with PDFs fairly frequently, so it's convenient to have a browser that supports them. Someone else is going to have different requirements. I don't have a problem with that, but I'd prefer to have an option to disable or remove the features that I don't need or want.

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#436

Post by StreamBright »

doostee wrote: post #370
StreamBright wrote: post #60

My biggest disappointment with the business version the fact that it is impossible to turn off the pop up notification when somebody logs in or out from Skype. Before you post me URL from the support website, non of them works, everybody in the office (10+ engineers) tried to disable this but no success. The only way you block that is to put yourself into do not disturb mode, but than non of the legitimate notificati…

I found that very annoying as well. The way I found to turn the behavior off in Skype For Business 2016 is to individually right-click on each contact's name and then un-check "Tag for Status Change Alerts".

Thank you very much, I will explore this tomorrow. I am hoping it can be done with PS or some other scripting means.

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#437

Post by stormbrew »

Klathmon wrote: post #432
stormbrew wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And I much prefer current hangouts to the old google talk plugin. "small", "light"? Did you ever use it. You needed to download and install 2 separate programs to get Google Talk video chat working. Sometimes you'd need to do some port forwarding bullshit just to get it to work. I'm pretty sure the GP is referring to the native google talk client that gtalk was originally launched with. It was indeed a very simple…

And you needed to install that client, then install the video and voice chat plugin if you wanted that, then sign in to your account (and if you had 2 factor auth you needed to jump through some other hoops). It just seems like people will rewrite history. It was cumbersome, had strange scaling issues on many of my PCs at the time, didn't work on macs, you needed to just do it yourself on linux (and i'm not even sure…

I still think you're talking about a different, later thing. The client I'm talking about had no plugins and didn't support video, but did support voip directly. It was actually a selling point at the time over MSNM/AIM, iirc. You're right it didn't work on macs, or linux for that matter, because it was a native windows program and they never released a client for any other platform and there was no web interface to it at the time (but you could use any xmpp client with it, as you still can).

I'm pretty sure it was also before google even had TFA.

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#438

Post by Relys »

Someone1234 wrote: post #323
dethos wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there are far better alternatives out there, so if we could stop using skype and switch to something else, would be a great move here. However, the network effect is strong with this one, so it is impractical to make the switch.

> Yes, there are far better alternatives out there, so if we could stop using skype and switch to something else, would be a great move here. What? There are secure text-only clients, but voice/video/group video? Where is the more secure version of those? Or is this going to go down the road of "set up your own VoIP service" again? People always say there are tons of alternatives to Skype... Where are these alternati…

Signal has a secure calling option but it isn't very robust and I've had issues with it.

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#439

Post by chc4 »

verbify wrote: post #258
ElijahLynn wrote: post #161

Stop using Skype. The NSA allegedly collects all Skype traffic anyways. Do you really want that? "The full capture of voice traffic began in February of 2011 for “Skype in” and “Skype out” calls—calls between a Skype user and a land line or cellphone through a gateway to the public switched telephone network (PSTN), captured through warranted taps into Microsoft’s gateways. But in July of 2011, the NSA added the capa…

I've given up on the NSA not reading my stuff. The NSA collects pretty much anything they can get their hands on. It's a losing battle. If there's something I don't want the NSA to know about, I use Tails.

Of course the NSA can read your stuff. The question is, will NSA be able to read your stuff /without you being specifically targeted/. There is a MASSIVE difference between getting caught in the global dragnet and being specifically targeted with nation-state malware and hardware hacks.

Don't expect that just because you are using PGP for email or OTR that NSA can't read your shit if they put their mind to it - but it's extremely unlikely that they will, and nothing would protect against it. It's a noble cause to use encryption, to stop yourself from intentionally giving data to anyone with a promiscuous WiFi card and broadcasting "please steal this" to anyone that can. You are choosing to give the NSA all your data.

Using an encrypted alternative to Skype also prevents Microsoft from Big Brother-ing you, too. It's not just the NSA, but Microsoft selling personal information to advertisers or collecting analytic data that you have every right not to provide.

Re: Dear Skype/Microsoft: Problems with Linux client

#440

Post by StreamBright »

shrikant wrote: post #220
StreamBright wrote: post #60

My biggest disappointment with the business version the fact that it is impossible to turn off the pop up notification when somebody logs in or out from Skype. Before you post me URL from the support website, non of them works, everybody in the office (10+ engineers) tried to disable this but no success. The only way you block that is to put yourself into do not disturb mode, but than non of the legitimate notificati…

Do you mean Skype for Business aka Lync? We use SfB extensively at my workplace, and I don't see these log in/out notifications at all, even when I want to!

It is SfB, lucky you, are you hiring?? :)
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