Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Untitled topic

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 166 posts

Re: undefined

#11

Post by danirod »

As others are saying, the new Electron-based app is so bad on so many levels. Recently it has been failing to deliver incoming messages. They don't even appear, it just causes confusion to anyone trying to have a text conversation. Plus the lack of features that versions for other platforms have.

At this point it's just better to use web.skype.com on a browser tab. I find that more reliable than the Electron client.

And I'm just talking about the Linux version here. It's like if Skype had different bugs on each platform. Windows version also has its own glitches too.

* The classic, full version of Skype for Windows sometimes flips the order of a few messages, so that if you send two messages, the first one appears below the second one.

* The new UWP app seems to disconnect every time the window gets minimized. When the window is restored, for a few seconds I see all my contacts offline while it's trying to reconnect.

Re: undefined

#12

Post by oskarth »

I do a lot of interviews using Skype screen sharing, and even though I'm on OSX a lot of people I pair with use Linux. Shortsighted move to deprecate before feature-parity in my opinion; will move away from Skype as soon as possible.

Re: undefined

#13

Post by winteriscoming »

This whole naming of Skype app for linux is confusing. This announcement is just that they are retiring their older version of the app and they are asking users to switch to the newer beta version which is missing some features. Ultimately there's still going to be an official app for Linux.

Re: undefined

#14

Post by pgaddict »

danirod wrote: post #11

As others are saying, the new Electron-based app is so bad on so many levels. Recently it has been failing to deliver incoming messages. They don't even appear, it just causes confusion to anyone trying to have a text conversation. Plus the lack of features that versions for other platforms have. At this point it's just better to use web.skype.com on a browser tab. I find that more reliable than the Electron client.…

I couldn't agree more.

We've been using Skype for internal communication for a very long time. Back then it was the only option that worked on all the OSes we need (Linux, Windows, Mac), had all the features, and it just worked.

But the Electron app is just damn terrible. The message layout is super inefficient - it can display maybe half the messages compared to the native client. If you click somewhere, it un-expectecly moves you somewhere else. And it just stopped delivering new messages some time ago (I've tried to downgrade to 5.2, but that made no difference).

Interestingly enough, the web skype delivers messages just fine (it still sucks for all the other reasons).

And it also does not drain the battery that much. The devs apparently had the bright idea to render the messages window as canvas, and refresh it at 60hz no matter what. Because of emoticons. The web skype does that too, but if the tab is inactive Firefox suspends that.

The only thing that mostly works for me is the Android client. I wonder how they'll break that one.

In any case, we have lost all hope Skype will get better again. Also, there are other options nowadays.

Re: undefined

#15

Post by fao_ »

oskarth wrote: post #12

I do a lot of interviews using Skype screen sharing, and even though I'm on OSX a lot of people I pair with use Linux. Shortsighted move to deprecate before feature-parity in my opinion; will move away from Skype as soon as possible.

If you need an alternative, the company I have been at for the last year uses Zoom, and it's been fantastic. I started using it for mentoring recently.

Re: undefined

#16

Post by FussyZeus »

sofaofthedamned wrote: post #7

I had an interview this morning which was via Skype, which I don't use. Gave my MacBook Pro r2013 to the missus, so all I had was the Android app on my Nexus 6p and the new app for Linux on my XPS 13. I did some tests beforehand and the Linux app doesn't even connect to the Skype Test account. So I used the Android app and the voice quality was so bad I had to riff on some things. We reconnected 2/3 times and it was…

I will never understand the idea in Microsoft that having UPnP running or being willing to open all kinds of jacked up ports is an acceptable user experience. UPnP is nice to have but it's difficult to find a router that has it, and even so, I've used Google Hangouts and Facetime over my network with zero issues, what makes Skype so star spangled awesome that it needs forwarded ports?

Re: undefined

#17

Post by will4274 »

FussyZeus wrote: post #16
sofaofthedamned wrote: post #7

I had an interview this morning which was via Skype, which I don't use. Gave my MacBook Pro r2013 to the missus, so all I had was the Android app on my Nexus 6p and the new app for Linux on my XPS 13. I did some tests beforehand and the Linux app doesn't even connect to the Skype Test account. So I used the Android app and the voice quality was so bad I had to riff on some things. We reconnected 2/3 times and it was…

I will never understand the idea in Microsoft that having UPnP running or being willing to open all kinds of jacked up ports is an acceptable user experience. UPnP is nice to have but it's difficult to find a router that has it, and even so, I've used Google Hangouts and Facetime over my network with zero issues, what makes Skype so star spangled awesome that it needs forwarded ports?

Every router I've bought in the last decade has had UPnP, and I don't look for it. Citation needed on the "difficult to find"

Re: undefined

#18

Post by izacus »

FussyZeus wrote: post #16
sofaofthedamned wrote: post #7

I had an interview this morning which was via Skype, which I don't use. Gave my MacBook Pro r2013 to the missus, so all I had was the Android app on my Nexus 6p and the new app for Linux on my XPS 13. I did some tests beforehand and the Linux app doesn't even connect to the Skype Test account. So I used the Android app and the voice quality was so bad I had to riff on some things. We reconnected 2/3 times and it was…

I will never understand the idea in Microsoft that having UPnP running or being willing to open all kinds of jacked up ports is an acceptable user experience. UPnP is nice to have but it's difficult to find a router that has it, and even so, I've used Google Hangouts and Facetime over my network with zero issues, what makes Skype so star spangled awesome that it needs forwarded ports?

Huh, I've never seen a router (this includes ISP provided DOCSIS/DSL/FTTH units) without UPnP support. It seems very well supported?

Re: undefined

#19

Post by marvel_boy »

fao_ wrote: post #15
oskarth wrote: post #12

I do a lot of interviews using Skype screen sharing, and even though I'm on OSX a lot of people I pair with use Linux. Shortsighted move to deprecate before feature-parity in my opinion; will move away from Skype as soon as possible.

If you need an alternative, the company I have been at for the last year uses Zoom, and it's been fantastic. I started using it for mentoring recently.

Yes, I also tried Zoom and is very good. It is very popular for mentoring and language classes.

Re: undefined

#20

Post by pmontra »

danirod wrote: post #11

As others are saying, the new Electron-based app is so bad on so many levels. Recently it has been failing to deliver incoming messages. They don't even appear, it just causes confusion to anyone trying to have a text conversation. Plus the lack of features that versions for other platforms have. At this point it's just better to use web.skype.com on a browser tab. I find that more reliable than the Electron client.…

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I missed a call today because I messaged my coworker and nobody answered. He told me he messaged and called me but I didn't receive anything. It worked yesterday.

That's a kind of a showstopper so I switched back to 4.3 hoping they'll fix it before the end of the month. I have a Windows VM with Skype installed but I'd rather start using something else with my customers.

Another annoying feature of the new Skype is that it has that modern/videogame look and feel which could be appropriate for casual chatting but not for business. Version 4.3 can be tweaked to look much like these HN pages: text with little space in between. Much more appropriate when copy pasting information and when scrolling back to read past calls.

And no history past 30 days.

And no search in history anyway.

And that useless unresizable black call window that eats up of half of the screen, thanks MS!

Post reply on HN