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Skype finalizes its move to the cloud, ignores the elephant in the room

arstechnica.com

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Re: Skype finalizes its move to the cloud, ignores the elephant in the room

#91

Post by m_mueller »

MichaelGG wrote: post #89
mhurron wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's also gotten extremely buggy. No kidding. If I get a skype message while my iphone is locked, when I swipe to unlock and open the app, those messages (all of them if there were several on the lock screen) are lost forever.

I've the opposite issue. Skype keeps redelivering messages. Even after I've read and responded. Sometimes 8 hours after. The UI always sucked (made me wonder why it has been mentioned as a positive example of software made outside the US) - but the basic message flow is broken now.

> positive example of software made outside the US

well in this particular case it seems to have been screwed over once an American company took over. Skype always worked fine before MS (and the US Government) took over.

Re: Skype finalizes its move to the cloud, ignores the elephant in the room

#92

Post by mixmastamyk »

dimino wrote: post #69
mixmastamyk wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't need free speech, don't have anything to say."

"I don't need free speech all the time."

That's not how it works. If you don't fight for your rights, you will lose them.

Re: Skype finalizes its move to the cloud, ignores the elephant in the room

#93

Post by brokenmachine »

awqrre wrote: post #80
busterarm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This also happened to me with Hotmail and a few times with Xbox Live. I haven't tried to log into Skype in years and I don't expect to start. Live ID is the worst thing that they've ever done.

Hotmail basically locked me out of my account because I won't give them a phone number or an alternate email address (they say "Help us protect your account")... I can edit the URL to get out of this requirement but it probably won't last forever... I probably had this email address for 15 years or more...

Oh wow, how do you edit the URL?

I've been locked out of my old hotmail account since they wanted my phone number. I'd like to just check if there's anything in there, then that's it for me with hotmail.

Re: Skype finalizes its move to the cloud, ignores the elephant in the room

#94

Post by findjashua »

lkrubner wrote: post #18

A personal anecdote: I had the same account on Skype for most of the last 10 years. The same username. It was stable. Lots of people could contact me reliably. It was an account that was created long before Skype was bought by Microsoft. Then came the update that they pushed out last year. Now everyone needed a Microsoft ID to login. There was some kind of "improvement" in the way authentication was done. So I had to…

I had the EXACT same experience, and also lost my balance (<$10) on it. I now use hangouts for video & whatsapp for voice calling, and skype only when there's no other option.

Re: Skype finalizes its move to the cloud, ignores the elephant in the room

#95

Post by Dylan16807 »

Sylos wrote: post #26
arunc wrote: post #6

What stable alternatives do we have for a pure P2P? Tox still doesn't persist group chats, yet. I hope someone will come up with an implementation of Riffle.

The recent introduction of WebRTC to browsers could throw Skype off its throne. You pretty much just go on the webpage of such a WebRTC-service, start up a conversation, which generates you a link, then you send that link to your conversation partner and they just have to open this link in their browser to join the conversation. That's so incredibly simple to use, that it should be much less of a problem to get peopl…

But how do I send that link to people? That doesn't address the issue arunc mentioned of persistent group chat.

These days with a lot of people I do text chat on skype and we hop onto discord for audio. There's no good single program that can do everything yet. The "I want a pony" contender would have: text chat that can work asynchronously and let you view history offline, voice and video and screen sharing, the ability to do end-to-end security, and it wouldn't break all the time, on desktop and phone.

Re: Skype finalizes its move to the cloud, ignores the elephant in the room

#96

Post by scoot »

lkrubner wrote: post #18

A personal anecdote: I had the same account on Skype for most of the last 10 years. The same username. It was stable. Lots of people could contact me reliably. It was an account that was created long before Skype was bought by Microsoft. Then came the update that they pushed out last year. Now everyone needed a Microsoft ID to login. There was some kind of "improvement" in the way authentication was done. So I had to…

I lost most of my first deposit due to their "use-it or lose-it" policy in the early days (may still be in effect?).

As a result, they lost me as a paying customer.

I had even bought Skype compatible DECT wireless handsets, we ended up just using them for POTS calls.

Re: Skype finalizes its move to the cloud, ignores the elephant in the room

#97

Post by HashThis »

lkrubner wrote: post #18

A personal anecdote: I had the same account on Skype for most of the last 10 years. The same username. It was stable. Lots of people could contact me reliably. It was an account that was created long before Skype was bought by Microsoft. Then came the update that they pushed out last year. Now everyone needed a Microsoft ID to login. There was some kind of "improvement" in the way authentication was done. So I had to…

Microsoft is incredibly messed up on passwords and logins. Office 365 is password hell. They ask to login with a Microsoft account and I login with an Office 365 account, and they reject it. I stopped using my Hotmail account because their password problems blocked me. I had to take my Surface into their Geneius bar because I couldn't login because of password reset problems. I couldn't use my Surface at all for 4 months because of password problems and I gave up on it.

People will flee Microsoft because they fkup being an internet company or internet feature based company. They block their own customers and force them to flee away.

Re: Skype finalizes its move to the cloud, ignores the elephant in the room

#98

Post by joshuak »

scoot wrote: post #96
lkrubner wrote: post #18

A personal anecdote: I had the same account on Skype for most of the last 10 years. The same username. It was stable. Lots of people could contact me reliably. It was an account that was created long before Skype was bought by Microsoft. Then came the update that they pushed out last year. Now everyone needed a Microsoft ID to login. There was some kind of "improvement" in the way authentication was done. So I had to…

I lost most of my first deposit due to their "use-it or lose-it" policy in the early days (may still be in effect?). As a result, they lost me as a paying customer. I had even bought Skype compatible DECT wireless handsets, we ended up just using them for POTS calls.

Yep, this is me too. They took $9.22, and lost me as a customer forever.

Clearly didn't hurt them much. Hmm, maybe I should reconsider my business plan.

Re: Skype finalizes its move to the cloud, ignores the elephant in the room

#99

Post by awqrre »

brokenmachine wrote: post #93
awqrre wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hotmail basically locked me out of my account because I won't give them a phone number or an alternate email address (they say "Help us protect your account")... I can edit the URL to get out of this requirement but it probably won't last forever... I probably had this email address for 15 years or more...

Oh wow, how do you edit the URL? I've been locked out of my old hotmail account since they wanted my phone number. I'd like to just check if there's anything in there, then that's it for me with hotmail.

I login @ live.com, and then type "hotmail.com" in the address bar (now I probably can say goodbye to my very old email address)

Re: Skype finalizes its move to the cloud, ignores the elephant in the room

#100

Post by w33ble »

Kluny wrote: post #63

What are people using for video chat? I use it so rarely (maybe once a year) that every time I do, I have to learn some new software, install stuff, sign up for accounts, etc. Facebook messenger is great for talking with my niece, but that's not appropriate for business. I ended up using Facetime most recently. That only works if I bring my personal computer to work. I had the same experience as @lkrubner when I trie…

Hangouts is an easy goto, but it uses a ton of system resources.

Zoom is amazing for video chat, even with hundreds of people on a call. The screen sharing works well too, and even offers remote control. It uses a lot less resources to run too.

If you only need voice, Discord is quite nice, and they have a web client so you can just send a link and the other party can just start chatting with you.

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