Skype For Web Beta Goes Worldwide 76
SmartAboutThings writes: Just days after offering a limited beta release of Skype for Web to customers in the U.S. and UK, Microsoft has made the beta available to users from all over the world. The expansion adds support for: Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, English, German, Greek, Spanish, Estonian, Finnish, French, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Chinese Simplified, and Chinese Traditional.
Fix the linux client next (Score:3, Insightful)
Now maybe they will have time to fix screen sharing in the Linux client.
Re:Fix the linux client next (Score:5, Funny)
Oh they're going to fix Linux good.
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No; Not jet at least. Web version tells me in both Chrome and Firefox "Audio and video calls are not supported on your OS". (Fedora 21)
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I was surprised and nonplussed to get this message also, a few days ago. (Linux Mint 17.1). I couldn't help but wonder, what has the OS to do with something running within the browser? Other web sites can use my camera and microphone just fine (eg. Google Hangouts). What technical reason would there be for Linux to be frozen out?
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Typically Microsoft, it needs a custom plugin ala ActiveX to make it work. Works only on Mac/Windows.
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Works fine on Firefox on ArchLinux. No plugins installed, btw.
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Why would they do that when they can add even bigger emoticons.
Let's get your priorities straight.
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Why would they do that when they can add even bigger emoticons.
Oh those aren't even animated on Linux. They could fix that too!
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Skype -> Options -> IM -> Show Animated Emoticons
Fix the Windows 10 client first (Score:2)
Alternatives for Skype in Linux (Score:2)
For quite some time, Eionrob has written a Skype plugin [github.com] for purple (thus works in pidgin, adium, etc.)
Currently 2 versions available:
One requires the skype client running and uses the official Skype API to use it.
It still requires Skype, but at least it's being now routed to a half-decent client.
Voice calls work by opening a window from the original skype client.
The other version uses "Skype for Web".
It works thus 100% natively on any installation, without needing the original client.
Voice calls currently n
This is good (Score:1, Interesting)
Many people trying e.g. Chromebooks have complained the lack of Skype being the only reason they can't use them on a daily basis. It's amazing it took this long for MS to put out a truly cross-platform solution of Skype.
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I've banned customers(!) from conference-calls on projects, due to them using Skype - my experience is that Skype is horrible.
That said, audio-quality on Google Talk is not exactly impressive either...t
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If it's Google, it ain't free. You pay for it with your privacy.
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Quite right. But it's not like Skype doesn't snoop either.
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It's amazing it took this long for MS to put out a truly cross-platform solution of Skype.
Keep waiting. There's yet another needless and painful UI change. There's no dial pad so you can only call people who are in your contacts list. Living abroad from the US, 90% of my Skype use is to call landlines in North America to deal with banks, government agencies and the like.
It seems like with every minor update MS somehow manages to obfuscate the UI and make simple tasks such dialing an actual number or removing or adding contacts difficult. Why do they need to keep making this useful application
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the browser extension works on chromeos?
Re:This is good (Score:4, Informative)
Uh huh.
"Audio and video calls are not supported on your OS"
(Ubuntu Linux 14.04, Firefox, Chromium, AND Chrome)
"Cross platform", my arse.
The Windows version demands a 6MB MSI installer get run as well, so it's not entirely standard WebRTC either.
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Not specific to Ubuntu, doesn't work with Fedora 21 either. Tried both Chrome and Firefox
"Audio and video calls are not supported on your OS".
Desktop version does work, but not group video calls...
Skype worldwide (Score:1)
Installs an extension... (Score:3)
... so WTF is the point? The whole reason I want a webapp is so I have to install *less* shit on my computers.
Re:Installs an extension... (Score:4, Interesting)
If I want screen sharing I'll use fucking TeamViewer. Give me basic IM, voice and maybe video support without a plugin or GTFO.
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I do want to be able to talk to my parents and other people who use Skype ;)
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While this does sound interesting (thank you for the tip, by the way - I may use this for other purposes), I'm not looking to move out of the Skype ecosystem because so many people I communicate with are already in it.
I just want to get rid of the Skype desktop application because it *sucks*. A webapp would be a welcome change.
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I'm not looking to move out of the Skype ecosystem ...
I just want to get rid of the Skype desktop application because it *sucks*.
Just on the economics of it, the first line there is why the second line exists. #incentives
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As a matter of personal interest, why all the interest in TeamViewer over the past few years compared to products like VNC? What's the benefit?
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How do you do screen sharing with HTML and JavaScript? Yeah, thought so.
I would suppose that one could build a api to do so on top of X11 or Wayland if you really wanted to but if you are going to do that why not use protcol built to do that
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With a modern browser that supports it?
Try Talky [talky.io]
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And if you want to to work better : Kickstart it a bit
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... [kickstarter.com]
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Talky [talky.io] seems to screen share in Firefox without an extension, but in Chromium it wants to install one.
It seems to have varied levels of support [iswebrtcreadyyet.com] right now.
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... so WTF is the point? The whole reason I want a webapp is so I have to install *less* shit on my computers.
Because your browser's native WebRTC support doesn't include an NSA backdoor, and Skype's plug-in does.
Skype the Web product? (Score:2)
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If I understand correctly:
- "In the future Skype for Web will utilize WebRTC so that you don’t need to install any plugins to get it working — meaning you only need to allow the site permission to use your webcam and microphone and you’re good to go, but for now a plugin is required to make calls."
- what we do know about Skype:
any calls you make with Skype go through servers, it's not a peer2peer solution anymore:
http://arstechnica.com/busines... [arstechnica.com]
My guess is one of the positive reasons is:
WebRTC (Score:1)
I'm pretty sure both Firefox and Chrom* support WebRTC in some way. I used it just recently without much issue in Firefox, the other person was using Windows and I was on Ubuntu and there wasn't an issue.
It seems like Skype is becoming more deprecated when it comes to casual video chatting. I wonder if these alternatives will catch on, and allow me to not keep Skype installed. I can always hope.
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I'm pretty sure both Firefox and Chrom* support WebRTC in some way.
Nah, Lucina has it, not Chrom.
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Here's a WebRTC support matrix [iswebrtcreadyyet.com] by the people building Talky [talky.io]. Chrome is listed has having pretty good support for WebRTC.
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He was making a chuckle joke.
When you Google the names Lucina and Chrom, you, too, may find yourself with a chuckle.
But this does make my question more urgent, since apparently the Skype plugin isn't totally cross platform as of now, on top of using non-standard web technology... It would if both Mozilla and Google worked together to make video chatting seamless on the web without extra plugins or add-ons.
Profile picture (Score:4, Informative)
Can you even change your profile picture in this one?
Sometimes the easiest things are the hardest.
Afaik you still can do that only in Skype for Windows. Not on Android, not on the website, not anywhere else.
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Nope, not here. Using Android 4.2 with current Skype.
I don't have a Microsoft account, only a Skyp account. Maybe MS expects everybody just to get an MS account.
Hurm (Score:1)
Does it work on *BSD, ARM SoCs, or even my MIPS machines? No? What's the point of it then? x86 Linux, Windows, OSX, and Major Cellphone OS's already have binaries...
I thought the purpose of a "webapp" was to make it platform/architecture agnostic.
Stupid Microsoft screwing it up again.
cmon it's 2015... (Score:1)
people are still using skype? really?