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Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

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Re: Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

#111
post #14

While on topic of Skype: My God the latest Skype design update is abysmal, whoever come up with that horrible mess should be fired and never touch any design or management role at all. And it’s not only design but the ux is horrible too, when you switch between conversation - it does not focus on the chat box field so you can start typing right away, instead you have to click it first. This is a basic stuff for a cha…

Design? UX? I'd wish those are the only issues with Skype. If really necessary, can tolerate ugliest of the designs, if it works. Problem is, it doesn't. It loses messages at random. Sometimes it fails to send (I was really angry when I had an important call, and my "Hey, I'm here, let's start" got stuck in "Sending..." forever - thankfully, web.skype.com worked. That message made it through only the next day.) Somet…

Or the desktop client on OSX keeps asking for admin privileges to install some helper tool every other day, with no explanation for why that's necessary.

Re: Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> on iPhone X when you accidentally click top left corner of the phone where the clock is - for some inexplicable reason the whole conversation scrolls all the way to the top, which is incredibly annoying! That's by design and standard iOS behaviour (it has been there for years). Tapping anywhere on the system toolbar (i.e. where the clock, wifi, signal strength indicators are) brings the main scrollable view to its…

I just tried it on this webpage, and you’re correct! I really dislike behavior like this that is useful to a few people but is far more likely to be encountered accidentally and feel buggy.

If you think this is weird, what about the "shake to undo" thing? :-)

Seriously, try to e.g. delete an email from the system's mail app, then vigorously shake your phone in anger. A popup asking you to "Undo delete" should appear on the screen (Many applications hook into this seemingly standard undo mechanism on iOS).

Some things in iOS are objectively weird and unintuitive but I miss them so much whenever I use an Android phone.

Re: Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

#113
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll second this. I recently moved to a project that uses Outlook/Skype/Exchange for everything, and Skype is the bane of my experience. Why do I need a window for contacts separate from the actual conversations? Why do I need email recaps of every conversion, often times with redundant messages? Why can't I have a group chat that's intended to be a permanent 'room', and not just a collection of people who are virtua…

That's definitely Skype for Business, and it is a trainwreck. It's also standing on foundations that are at least 15 years old, from the pre-Slack era of instant messaging - it works essentially the same as AIM, or SameTime, or Pidgin, or any of the IM clients of that era. Good news for you, SFB is most likely going away soon; Microsoft is seemingly hell bent on rolling all of the things into Teams.

Don’t worry, they’ll make sure to replace teams with something else as soon as teams threatens to become a universal solution for business.

Re: Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

#114
post #14

While on topic of Skype: My God the latest Skype design update is abysmal, whoever come up with that horrible mess should be fired and never touch any design or management role at all. And it’s not only design but the ux is horrible too, when you switch between conversation - it does not focus on the chat box field so you can start typing right away, instead you have to click it first. This is a basic stuff for a cha…

Agreed, the problem with Skype is not end-to-end encryption.

IMHO the last update killed it, awful interface and less features

major changes:

- the "favourites" list (useful) now it's a global directory (useless)

- cannot screen-share a window, only the whole screen (you start hearing the fan very soon on a 5k desktop)

- text chat is now 3 centimeters wide, regardless of screen size (=> useless, in particular if you are in an audio+text call)

Re: Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Design? UX? I'd wish those are the only issues with Skype. If really necessary, can tolerate ugliest of the designs, if it works. Problem is, it doesn't. It loses messages at random. Sometimes it fails to send (I was really angry when I had an important call, and my "Hey, I'm here, let's start" got stuck in "Sending..." forever - thankfully, web.skype.com worked. That message made it through only the next day.) Somet…

Or the desktop client on OSX keeps asking for admin privileges to install some helper tool every other day, with no explanation for why that's necessary.

That helper tool maxes my cpu every time I’m on a call. It’s amazingly terrible.

Re: Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

#116
post #45

Just to get a sense of the track record here, Signal Protocol powers: * Facebook/WhatsApp * Google/Allo * Microsoft/Skype * Signal Signal is also the basis for the protocols for Wire (Proteus) and Matrix (Olm).

I love this. The more encryption is used, the less journalists talking to their sources, lawyers talking to their clients, etc. will stand out.

Re: Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> on iPhone X when you accidentally click top left corner of the phone where the clock is - for some inexplicable reason the whole conversation scrolls all the way to the top, which is incredibly annoying! That's by design and standard iOS behaviour (it has been there for years). Tapping anywhere on the system toolbar (i.e. where the clock, wifi, signal strength indicators are) brings the main scrollable view to its…

It has been for years. I love it and miss this on Android (and MacOS as well).

On MacOS it's present in Mail app at least - if you click on the grey bar at the top of the email list it will scroll to the top :).

Re: Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just tried it on this webpage, and you’re correct! I really dislike behavior like this that is useful to a few people but is far more likely to be encountered accidentally and feel buggy.

I like it and use it all the time and many people I know also use it a lot. It is not as good for text that is most relevant on the bottom (e.g. text messages) but really useful for webpages, etc.. Some apps implement some logic to scroll back up when you tap it again (Apollo comes to mind). The only disadvantage is that many users do not know about this feature (because there is no indication that the status bar tab…

Agree with this. It's a great feature other than in messaging apps. In those, I wish there was an equally useful feature to get back to the bottom.

I've noticed that most people find the feature accidentally, but then once they realize it's an option, use it extensively.

Re: Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

#119
post #39
post #14

While on topic of Skype: My God the latest Skype design update is abysmal, whoever come up with that horrible mess should be fired and never touch any design or management role at all. And it’s not only design but the ux is horrible too, when you switch between conversation - it does not focus on the chat box field so you can start typing right away, instead you have to click it first. This is a basic stuff for a cha…

Have you tried the skype mobile app latest update ? It makes the desktop version look amazing. Somehow, they thought we wanted skype to be a clone of whatsapp stories or whatever. Nothing works properly, it's slow as hell, but goody you can like and put a smiley on each individual message ! I used to really like skype but it has now become one of the worst, and I'm still forced to use it due to several of my contacts…

There's not a "Skype Lite" for Android... which returns back to previous form. Why that was necessary only Microsoft knows.

Re: Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

#120
Skype is proprietary software. Even if it encrypts my messages E2E, it still needs to display them with its proprietary UI and see them in plain text. There's no way I could trust that or recommend anyone else to.

The thing about E2E encryption is that you still need to have reasonable trust in each E.

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