Bye Bye Skype, Top 3 Free Replacements

#1

Post by linuxnow » Mon, May 16, 2011, 8:43 AM UTC

Bye Bye Skype, Top 3 Free Replacements
ostatic.com

Re: Bye Bye Skype, Top 3 Free Replacements

#2

Post by maqr » Mon, May 16, 2011, 8:59 AM UTC

I'll be trying to get my contacts to use Google Talk. It has all the features of Skype, including video conferencing, for free.

Re: Bye Bye Skype, Top 3 Free Replacements

#3

Post by p4bl0 » Mon, May 16, 2011, 9:05 AM UTC

I don't see why people would quit using Skype now. The fact that it has been bought by Microsoft doesn't change that Skype is evil. It already was. It already was a closed source software using a proprietary protocol and doing stuff you don't know with your bandwidth.

Don't get me wrong, it's great if people switch from Skype to something free (as in freedom), but not if it's because it has been bought by Microsoft, this makes no sense.

Re: Bye Bye Skype, Top 3 Free Replacements

#4

Post by StavrosK » Mon, May 16, 2011, 9:06 AM UTC

The fact of the matter is, however, that if Skype could be replaced, it would.

Re: Bye Bye Skype, Top 3 Free Replacements

#5

Post by jister » Mon, May 16, 2011, 9:28 AM UTC

I don't see any reason to replace Skype.

Re: Bye Bye Skype, Top 3 Free Replacements

#6

Post by stashdot » Mon, May 16, 2011, 9:55 AM UTC

p4bl0 wrote: post #3

I don't see why people would quit using Skype now. The fact that it has been bought by Microsoft doesn't change that Skype is evil. It already was. It already was a closed source software using a proprietary protocol and doing stuff you don't know with your bandwidth. Don't get me wrong, it's great if people switch from Skype to something free (as in freedom), but not if it's because it has been bought by Microsoft,…

The simple reason is that the Linux version of Skype might be axed as a result of the acquisition. This has happened before.

Re: Bye Bye Skype, Top 3 Free Replacements

#7

Post by Wickk » Mon, May 16, 2011, 10:01 AM UTC

It's great that there's replacements. But let's be serious, I'm not going to be able to convince my friends/family who by and large is not going to care about any changes that MS brings to Skype.

Alternative VOIP programs are not in anyway new, the same issue of getting people to actually use these programs is still prevalent.

Re: Bye Bye Skype, Top 3 Free Replacements

#8

Post by 51Cards » Mon, May 16, 2011, 10:09 AM UTC

In most cases there are alternatives to every social platform, and frequently better ones than the popular 'standard'... but if there is no one there you want to talk to, it's not too useful.

Re: Bye Bye Skype, Top 3 Free Replacements

#9

Post by bad_user » Mon, May 16, 2011, 10:10 AM UTC

maqr wrote: post #2

I'll be trying to get my contacts to use Google Talk. It has all the features of Skype, including video conferencing, for free.

Unfortunately the desktop client needs some work, and AFAIK it supports only windows.

And another thing I don't like about Google Talk is that last time I tried, it had no support for multi-user video-conferencing. Neither do the free Skype accounts, but I think on Skype you can have a video-conference with up to 4 users.

So if Google is going to put some resources into GTalk, then it will kick-ass (you'll just tell your friends / colleagues to download the client and to use their GMail account for login), or just use the GMail web interface (which currently is more capable than the stable desktop client :)).

Otherwise there is no good alternative to Skype.

Re: Bye Bye Skype, Top 3 Free Replacements

#10

Post by trezor » Mon, May 16, 2011, 10:10 AM UTC

maqr wrote: post #2

I'll be trying to get my contacts to use Google Talk. It has all the features of Skype, including video conferencing, for free.

I know absolutely nobody who uses Google Talk. Posting on Facebook "Does anyone here really use Google Talk?" there was a roaring silence in response.

I can't for the life of me see why you would go from a minor evil service like Skype/MSN/whatever with a variety of clients to choose from to a monsterous big-brother service like Google Talk.

Aren't we giving Google enough power and dominance as it is?

Edit: To comment on the actual article, it seems to be a mix of supposedly fashionate "Microsoft sucks" attitude, standard "Microsoft is evil" paranoia and some legitimate concerns about future support for non-Microsoft platforms.

IMO the only one worthy of discussion would be the last one.