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Microsoft Bug Software

Microsoft Needs To Fix Skype (theverge.com) 224

Posted by msmash from the skype-woes dept.
It's no secret that Microsoft has long stopped caring about Skype for Linux. But the VoIP and instant messaging service isn't exactly working well on other platforms either. Microsoft reporter and critic Tom Warren lists a number of issues he continues to face on Skype. These issues include infrequent restarts, too many update prompts, and just having to deal with the unimpressive user interface that Skype throws at everyone's face. "I'm not sure what Microsoft has done to Skype, but it sucks now," he writes. Warren adds: Recently, friends and family have started experiencing some of the many issues I experience, including calls simply not connecting properly and every device in a home ringing non-stop even when a call is activated. Microsoft had promised to fix notifications blasting out to both your desktop machine and mobile, but I still frequently receive them in real-time on multiple devices. [...] I regularly have to restart the app just to make a call, or have my microphone detected correctly. This isn't a single device with driver issues, it's consistent across machines. I can't even scroll up and down on the contacts section of the Skype app with my trackpad, it just doesn't work. Those are bugs that should be easy to address, but Microsoft has also struggled to get the UI right with Skype.
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Microsoft Needs To Fix Skype More

Microsoft Needs To Fix Skype

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  • What did you expected? Same old story (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JcMorin ( 930466 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2016 @11:14AM (#52128045)
    The same happened when Winamp or ICQ got purchased. The new company put the crap they want. Failed to understand the code and get stuck with hard to fix bug until the people move to another product.
    • Users migrating to another appli is probably the only thing that may catalyze the upgrade of Skype. Tried and pretty happy with LINE [line.me]. Intuitive. Fast. Reliable. Free or cheaper calls.

      • The problem with LINE is: you can only create an account if you have a cell phone that runs LINE. E.g. it is impossible on an iPad (which would run line, but does not allow to create accounts) nor is it possible via the Desktop app or web site.

        LINE is very popular in Asia ...

        • You can create a Line account without a phone number. You have to install the iPhone version of the "Line" app on your iPad to create an account (which does not require you to enter a phone number.) Then install the "Line for iPad" app and it should connect automatically to your account (if it doesn't, just log in.) You could also install the PC version and create an account that you can use on your iPad. I never even bothered getting the iPad version, I just kept the iPhone version (it's HD, the resolu

          • Oh, that sounds funny.

            How do you install and iPhone App on an iPad? I guess i need to download it somewhere and fiddle with iTunes.

            You could also install the PC version and create an account that you can use on your iPad I have the mac OS X version installed: it definitely is not capable of creating accounts. I wonder if the "PC version" is?

            My iPhone has an to old OS, and I don't want to upgrade, hence the current iPhone version does not run.

            (Yeah, I could make a back up, install new OS, install LINE, crea

    • it's cranky in the work version also, especially if you connect to somebody else's desktop outside.

      • Yes but that's an entirely different program, microsoft Lync, rebranded as skype. It does work much better than the user version anyway, perhaps they should share code among their teams.
    • Maybe, but I am not sure that's exactly what happened with AOL. From what I have read, AOL used to be very open-minded about technology prior to the merger. When they acquired ICQ and Winamp, they had expectations to expand on it. Apparently the thing that screwed up ICQ and Winamp was not AOL per se, but the merger of AOL and Time Warner. This caused serious culture clash and prevent any focus on the new technology they have acquired. You basically had old time people (time warner) running a tech comp

  • My dad, usually, has to sever the connection then send again to get his video to work correctly. Once this is done he has no issues.

    This is on a Windows 10 system of less than a year old (complete system, not a downgrade).

    As to updates, I have them turned off for Skype for the very reason updates generally cause problems.

  • Are you new here? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Maxwell ( 13985 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2016 @11:18AM (#52128073) Homepage
    Wait 5 years, or until a viable competitor emerges. Microsoft will then announce - with great fanfare - that they are creating a brand new super awesome video chat tool. Microsoft lovers will trip over themselves to be the first to herald the arrival of a new age. What they won't remember, what no one ever seems to remember is that Microsoft was responsible for screwing it up in the first place.

    I am still waiting for Active Directory to do what NDS used to do in the 1990's. And I can't wait until powershell finally replaces what UNIX has been doing since the 1970's. Remember this FACT: We would not have had graphical desktops without Microsoft! We'd still be using DOS!

    Yes, indeed it will be a great day when Microsoft invents, easy, universal video chat...I'm so excited!

    • The fact is, unix and linux comprise 90% of the consumer "computer" market these days. There's Mac OS X/iOS and Linux/Android. The only devices running non-unix-like OSs are genuine windows PCs.

      And the other fact is, there were multiple GUI shells before MS-Windows, even on the PC. The GUI as we know it mostly came from Xerox, which Apple copied followed by Microsoft. I would never claim though that any one of these agents is solely responsible for the GUI.

      You are correct though about Microsoft and their vi

      • There's Mac OS X/iOS and Linux/Android. The only devices running non-unix-like OSs are genuine windows PCs.

        You're forgetting Windows Phones. The 6 people who have them are offended that you've ignored them.

  • I just wish notifications would work on iOS (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rich Jefferson ( 4580821 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2016 @11:20AM (#52128097)
    If the iOS app hasn't been manually opened in the past few hours (minutes?), no call or text notifications come in. How hard is that to get right?

    • Re:I just wish notifications would work on iOS (Score:4)

      by swb ( 14022 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2016 @11:33AM (#52128199)

      It's the same way with Skype for Business, which we use at work. I never get any notifications unless I've had the app opened very recently, which really suck as its now our phone system interface, too.

    • On Android, unless you have the status bar widget activated the Skype app just swaps out after a couple of hours and never gets any CPU time.

      They recently changed the default to 'don't show status'.

      MS doesn't care. The only help on the support forums is other uses with the same problem.

      Even with the widget enabled, it's very flaky.

  • Death by a thousand cuts (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ITRambo ( 1467509 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2016 @11:22AM (#52128111)
    Microsoft is giving itself death (or at loss of some business/damage to reputation) by one thousand cuts. They're doing too much and doing much of it rather poorly. So many things to bitch about. But, I'll say nothing more otherwise this would get quite long.

  • Stopping caring about... (Score:5, Funny)

    by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2016 @11:22AM (#52128113)
    >> Microsoft has long stopped caring about Skype for Linux

    And Lync for Mac. And...

  • Skype for Business (Score:5, Informative)

    by AntronArgaiv ( 4043705 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2016 @11:24AM (#52128123)

    Recently, my copy of Skype for Business has been terminating abruptly. This is on my PC at work, maintained by my company. I can understand Microsoft not maintaining the Linux or "home" version of Skype, but I would expect their business version to be robust and reliable.

    Guess not. I wish I could say I'm surprised by this.

    • Re:Skype for Business (Score:5, Interesting)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <slashdot@worf.ERDOSnet minus math_god> on Tuesday May 17, 2016 @11:38AM (#52128241)

      Recently, my copy of Skype for Business has been terminating abruptly. This is on my PC at work, maintained by my company. I can understand Microsoft not maintaining the Linux or "home" version of Skype, but I would expect their business version to be robust and reliable.

      That's the problem, actually.

      Skype for Business is really a re-branding of Lync, Microsoft's other conferencing solution. And basically managing to screw it up like how they tried to unify Skype and MSN Messenger. At least the latter was text chat and Microsoft managed to get a gateway going (you could do voice and video on MSN, but it wasn't used heavily)

      Then Microsoft rebranded Lync as Skype for Business, integrated its functionality into Skype and all heck broke loose and the two really weren't meant to interoperate well. The user lists merged, but try having a multi-way conference between Skype and Lync users and hilarity ensues as randomly one group or the other fails to get voice, video or other data.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jlechem ( 613317 )
      I have the opposite experience. I use Skype for business at work and have no issues with it. It can be a little slow, I don't like how I have to accept conversations but other than that I never have it crash or act any kind of weirdness.
    • Yea, our company got hit by that too (crashes) it took them a couple of weeks to roll out a fix. FYI..skype for business is NOT actually "Skype". It's Lync Re-branded to fool you into thinking that Lync is now as cool as Skype because it's named thus...

    • Recently, my copy of Skype for Business has been terminating abruptly. This is on my PC at work, maintained by my company. I can understand Microsoft not maintaining the Linux or "home" version of Skype, but I would expect their business version to be robust and reliable.

      I'm glad to hear this isn't only happening at my company.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jez9999 ( 618189 )

      Skype for Business is an unbelievably shitty steaming pile of dinosaur faeces. I think Lync actually got WORSE when MS rebranded it. It actually throws up an error message on boot if Outlook is booted at the same time about some file being unavailable. At my business we just ditched it and use Skype instead.

  • Microsoft didn't buy them to make Skype better (Score:5, Insightful)

    by H3lldr0p ( 40304 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2016 @11:29AM (#52128163) Homepage

    It bought them to put its tech into their office platform.

    And now that has been completed, the company doesn't need anyone to use Skype anymore. So it's been put out to pasture, to let it grow old and die. It doesn't matter how many millions of people are using it or why it might be a good strategy for Microsoft to continue with the product.

    The base goal was achieved and now management has moved onto other projects. All that remains is the husk, the shell of something once shining and bright. Sort of like those crabs the Vogons liked to crush for no good reason.

  • Why would I go through the effort to install a piece of software, when there are good-quality web-based alternatives like google hangouts?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tepples ( 727027 )

      Because you want to communicate with people who have a Microsoft account but not a Google+ account or people who regularly open Skype but do not regularly open Google Hangouts.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rakarra ( 112805 )

      Why would I go through the effort to install a piece of software, when there are good-quality web-based alternatives like google hangouts?

      Because you have friends/contacts who are only using skype. And/or you don't want to give your soul to Google+.

    • I'm skype user so long, I'm not sure google even existed then.
      Definitely Google Hang out did not.

      Also: how am I expected to chat with my cute GF in Thailand when I have hangout and she has Skype?

      ((And yes, I have hangout on my iPad ... and one single contact who uses it, too))

      • Also: how am I expected to chat with my cute GF in Thailand when I have hangout and she has Skype?

        Does it really matter how you contact your virtual girlfriend?

        • First of all she is not virtual.

          Secondly, she can not switch to hangout as she is not educated enough. Would mean next time we meet, I have to install it. Or teach her how to configure it, installing is actually easy, the configuration is a bit tricky.

          And thirdly, she would be my second hangout contact, so prefer to have her in the bunch of my skype contacts :D

          And finally, she wants me to convert to LINE ... sigh.

  • One of the most common requests on the Skype community forums over the last year and a half is some (any!) basic configuration options for the UI.

    There's no way to get a properly compact view, there's no way to set the color of the bubbles, and the support for high-DPI screens is abysmal.

    In fact, once I started looking into it, I found a whole batch of UI problems with the new "improved" 7.0 UI, which I shared on the forums and then gathered into a handy blog post:

    Skype 7.0 - A new entry for the User Interf

  • From the article:
    "I'm not sure what Microsoft has done to Skype, but it sucks now,"

    Thy run Skype for Mac OS X like an App.
    It looks like an App, it behaves like an App, in other words it is bullshit.

    Luckily you still can double click on conversations to open them in their own window.

  • Microsoft's standard annoying programming (Score:5, Insightful)

    by brxndxn ( 461473 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2016 @11:32AM (#52128189)
    It's hard for me to think of anything Microsoft has done outside of developer tools that looks and feels somewhat consistent in terms of their UI in the past 5 years. It's like they've completely abandoned any 'UI-esque principles' and instead have just left everything up to whatever the fuck they feel like at the time. I used to feel pretty good about upgrading to the latest Microsoft software - but it just isn't there any more. Skype makes no fucking sense right now - neither on Windows or on Mac. On my Mac, it will show Skype contacts or Mac Contacts - but it does not seem to show my Outlook 2016 contacts. And, of course, in the new version of Outlook, Microsoft has decided to destroy compatibility with using Mac and Outlook contacts interchangeably. Skype for Windows is a disaster. It decides to pop itself up in front of the user every boot up. It doesn't have a 'get the fuck out of my way' option - and of course it's buggy as all hell. It's sad when I'm barely using Skype and my computer slows down - and I check processes and Skype is using 100% cpu for no goddamn reason.. End Skype and everything is better. I really wish Microsoft would work to make their own programs more consistent and compatible with each other. This isn't just a Skype issue. Outlook 2016 is completely unusable. Excel regularly crashes on typing very simple formulas. Powerpoint files sent to me from Windows users crash Powerpoint 2016 often. And, of course, Outlook 2016 isn't compatible with anything and loves to add duplicates of your contacts. But, of course, Microsoft has decided that their latest software is always better than old stuff so they're taking control of your computer and upgrading you to Windows 10. And one more thing.. Microsoft's programmers are cocky as hell. Every single one of them I've ever met act like they write better code than Donald Trump has words.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by swb ( 14022 )

      I wonder if part of this is because Microsoft is so goddamn big that half of their products are made by teams who aren't in the same city, report through different hierarchies and the whole mess is so ungovernable they can't even set guidelines for user interface coherency across the whole mess.

      • Re:Microsoft's standard annoying programming (Score:4, Interesting)

        by junkgoof ( 607894 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2016 @01:20PM (#52129019)
        Microsoft has never been consistent on the UI.

        Software quality is dropping like a stone with offshoring. You see it from IBM and Oracle too. Lots of bugs, incoherent error messages from someone who just learned that you can trap errors but not how to write English or how to provide different messages for different errors so that the real problem is hidden worse than if nothing had been trapped. Not that everyone onshore is a genius but there is some attempt at HR and technical interviews. Not even lip service once you go offshore, people are cheap and the cost of having crappy coders destroying the code base doesn't seem to figure for non-technical VPs. No end in sight because it's a management fad and outsourcers can bill offshore workers at crazy rates without customer complaints, it's a fad, execs can't knock it without admitting they have no idea what is going on in the companies they "run."
    • They're encouraged to make each new version of look different so it looks like you need to upgrade from the previous version. Because aside from shitty 64-bit support, everybody was still pretty content with XP. No reason to upgrade except to get the shiny new UI only available in the new version.
      • No reason to upgrade except to get the shiny new UI only available in the new version.

        And then they ruined even that starting with Win8.

    • I dunno office 2016 has been fine in my 150 seat office environment for me. Sounds more like computer problems on your end (100% cpu is not a problem i have had on any of the 150 workstations).

      Skype for windows popping up on logon is configurable. One of the first things i did.

      Outlook however, is best used with exchange server or hosted office365 (which is exchange). Not sure what mail provider you use but years ago using outlook with non exchange based mailservers was a load of headaches. Many word and pow

  • Prior to Skype, it was Lync. And Lync was fairly crappy. Then MSoft picked up Skype and said the two programs would merge. And they did. The program is now skinned as "Skype", but the actual program running is still called Lync. Ha!

    There are benefits to the program, of course. I can help people remotely by sharing my entire desktop or only a single window. It's integrated with Exchange, so if they're on our corporate network, I can chat with them quickly and easily. But it's all still very slow, the not
    • These hugely wasteful UIs are what we supposed to use and love now. I understand them on touchscreens ...but desktop users should have at least an option to use a compact, old-school UI.
      That, together with monocromatic icons makes me hate modern UIs (specifically Windows 10's UI).
      • Seems pretty obvious that Win10's UI was made to run on a smallish touchscreen...because so many desktops have touchscreens I guess. Or, half-blind users. I totally agree, Win10's UI is made for a phone / tablet, not a desktop. And it's total crap.

  • skype for business better

  • We use Lync (well, formerly known as Lync, now re branded as Skype for Business) for our work IM system

    The server is constantly locking up /dumping connections and just generally feels quite unreliable... It seems that it's gotten worse ever since they re branded as Skype I don't actually know if that's just my imagination.

    Still at least it's not full of ads like a lot of the free IM clients like Yahoo and AIM etc... (yes I know about Pidgin, but there are such serious issues in the LibPurple library I don't know as it's a really good choice)

    • We use Lync (well, formerly known as Lync, now re branded as Skype for Business) for our work IM system

      The server is constantly locking up /dumping connections and just generally feels quite unreliable...

      We frequently get this weird glitch where the voice has some high-frequency ring modulation, giving it this weird crystalline dalek sound to it. The strength varies a lot so it's usually just an annoyance, but sometimes it's totally garbled and you go into a conference call to hear this weird alien chipmunk sound instead of intelligible speech.

      It has also done this thing where it gets delayed and then tries to catch up by speeding through the buffer creatingthisweirdrushofbarelyintelligiblespeech until it

      • That is easily explained: Microsoft employs Daleks to write their software, and Klingons to debug it. The alien chipmunks are the quality control department's new hires.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PCM2 ( 4486 )

      We use Lync (well, formerly known as Lync, now re branded as Skype for Business) for our work IM system. The server is constantly locking up /dumping connections and just generally feels quite unreliable.

      Same. All we use Lync for (on OS X, no less) is text IM. Seems pretty basic. Still, pretty much all I have to do is walk away from my desk for half an hour and the connection to the server will have dropped. I won't know this, of course, until I pull up the Lync window to check if I'm still connected. And even though Lync is set to connect automatically, it won't reconnect after a dropped connection without me doing it manually.

  • After all these years you finally woke up and realized Skype sucks. I hope you had a nice nap. There are some other rude awakenings in store for you too. Believe it or not, Skype isn't the only Microsoft flagship product that is poorly supported and riddled with instability and security problems.

  • Obligatory Dilbert (Score:4, Funny)

    by jdavidb ( 449077 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2016 @11:49AM (#52128329) Homepage Journal
    2013-11-06 [dilbert.com]

  • The client has always been trash. They need to fix the Skype Web interface. It's what allows third-party skype clients to work, and it's what lets you check/message your contacts without having the skype client installed. But frequently you'll log into the web interface and it's clearly out of sync. Like.. contacts who are actually online will show up as offline, etc. Or messages will get queued instead of delivered. Or the whole thing will crash and not accept username/passwords for an hour (which is bette

    • Or messages will get queued instead of delivered.

      This happens when the contact is offline. Apparently, _sometimes_ Skype is true P2P and cannot send messages to offline contacts. Of course, the messages are queued _locally_ so if you are offline when the contact goes online, they won't get your message!

  • Skype may as well be dead. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ilsaloving ( 1534307 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2016 @11:54AM (#52128371)

    It's at the point where the only keeping Skype going is momentum. I stopped using it a long time ago, and the only reason I even keep it on my computer is in the rare occasion that I need to communicate with someone who only has Skype and nothing else. And unlike Windows, there isn't a massive ecosystem behind Skype that forces people to stay on board.

    Google Hangouts, Facetime... hell, taking polaroid pictures and sending the resulting photos tied to a pigeon would be a more reliable, less irritating experience. Heck, they can't even maintain their Skype for Business product properly either. Mac has been waiting for years now and the best Microsoft has been able to do is repeatedly say "It'll be coming out any time now..."

    Unless Microsoft does something to make Skype VERY compelling, VERY quickly, the exodus will just pick up speed.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jez9999 ( 618189 )

      Google Hangouts is pretty dodgy as well, with Google tinkering about with it all the time (how the hell do you find anyone? there's no normal contacts list and when you search you are basically searching ALL of Google Hangouts), and I also don't like the fact that you have to run it from a web browser. I'm on a PC and I don't permanently have a web browser open (yeah you can run the Hangouts app in Chrome but that's still technically keeping an invisible web browser running. It also bizarrely closes itself

      • Yeah, Apple is missing a massive opportunity by not making it cross platform beyond their own products. It's actually very good.... Of course, given their track record on other Windows ports of their products, I guess maybe it's a good thing that they haven't ported it. :P

        I agree Hangouts is also dodgy, but it's better than Skype. Also, there are other lesser known Skype clones like Viber. I personally don't care that much about video calls, so I've been pushing people to use Telegram. It only does mess

  • Forget Skype. What about Outlook? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 17, 2016 @11:56AM (#52128381)

    How about fixing the 10,001 things wrong with Outlook? I'm forced to use the POS every day at work and it makes my skin crawl every time I use it. Microsoft seems to have embraced a culture of technical mediocrity. The hard reality behind their grandiose marketing hype is an attitude of slovenly indifference.

    • Microsoft seems to have embraced a culture of technical mediocrity.

      "Embraced"? That's been Microsoft's culture since the beginning.

      • Remember that scene from "Pirates of Silicon Valley"?

        Steve Jobs: "We're better than you are! We have better stuff."
        Bill Gates: "You don't get it, Steve. That doesn't matter!"

        • My favorite scene in that movie was when they were carrying around their box of blueboxes on campus in the middle of a riot.

  • The problem (Score:5, Informative)

    by IWantMoreSpamPlease ( 571972 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2016 @11:57AM (#52128403) Homepage Journal

    As I see it, was that Skype, as created, didn't need any "tweaking" it was basically done. It did what it needed to do, and it did it well. No fuss, no muss, no issues.

    Naturally, MS had to come in and fuck it up.
    I mean, improve upon it.

    Now it barely works and is stuffed full of shit no one wants or needs.
    In other words, standard MS practice.

  • Why do you think Microsoft, of all corporations, would be interested in spending time and money on improving a program that gives users valuable services free of charge?

  • Might be focusing on Lync (Score:3)

    by Isao ( 153092 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2016 @11:58AM (#52128419)
    Their business chat / voice / video tool ("Microsoft Lync") has been getting some of their attention, and was recently rebranded "Skype for Business". They may be converging the two, using the Lync code base going forward. To me that makes more sense than maintaining two products that do the same thing.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PCM2 ( 4486 )

      Their business chat / voice / video tool ("Microsoft Lync") has been getting some of their attention, and was recently rebranded "Skype for Business". They may be converging the two, using the Lync code base going forward. To me that makes more sense than maintaining two products that do the same thing.

      And yet they did the same thing when they rolled out OneDrive and OneDrive for Business as two products that perform essentially the same functions but don't have full feature parity and are based on completely different backends.

  • After seeing what Microsoft has done to Skype for Windows, I'm quite happy with Skype the way it is - Linux Skype works properly in Pulseaudio.

    I only have two demands, and that's to make Skype 64bit, as it is 32bit for most OS's not called Ubuntu. Would be nice to look good in KDE.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by caferace ( 442 )
      Yeah, the Linux client works fine for me. I'm actually happy to not see an update. I use it to record calls with people, so change is bad. :)
  • However, the NSA-mandated backdoors are rock-solid reliable.
  • Ten years ago (or maybe a little less than that), Skype wasn't really great, but it "just worked" and it was a widely agreed upon platform for communication (like what ICQ and AIM once were). Nobody I know uses Skype anymore; the video ads, ultra-high latency, and general bugginess has now driven just about everybody to another platform.

    It's kind of amazing how artful Microsoft is at destroying things: Skype, Nokia, Lionhead, Groove, Rare. I'm sure Microsoft shills can quote off the top of their head how

  • Sucks just now? (Score:3)

    by xfizik ( 3491039 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2016 @12:33PM (#52128691)

    "I'm not sure what Microsoft has done to Skype, but it sucks now," he writes.

    When did Skype NOT suck? Yes, at some point it was a fairly novel, affordable/free product "for the masses", but it was never a product that didn't suck in multiple aspects such as UI, stability, functionality just to name a few.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday May 17, 2016 @12:41PM (#52128757)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Let it die, stop using it!!

    It is only used because "other" people use it, no one like it... stop using it and let it die, everyone will win.

    Now with webrtc, the standard for chat is webchat, with FULL video, audio support. Just use the build in "firefox hello", https://appear.in/ [appear.in] , https://apprtc.webrtc.org/ [webrtc.org] , https://talky.io/ [talky.io] , https://www.voicechatapi.com/ [voicechatapi.com] or https://meet.jit.si/ [meet.jit.si] and you will never need skype again . If you need a client with a full "friend list", you can use plain old irc or jabber and

  • Don't hold your breath waiting for Microsoft to fix their shit. Just move to something better, alternatives exist. My favorite is Google Hangouts.

    This is like listening to someone complain about the burger joint they go to and how their burgers don't taste good anymore. Why would you keep going to a restaurant that serves food that you don't like? Go somewhere else!

  • And we stopped caring about Skype period.

    We've long since moved to Zoom and never looked back.

  • What is this article getting at by mentioning "out of date" Linux versions? I vehemently enjoy my old Linux version of Skype. This generation of Microsoft has a troubling idea of what constitutes "new features". I don't want any of it. If only I could time-lock all my Windows friends into the same version.

  • As much as we love to hate Microsoft and their mediocre, poorly tested, insecure products, in the case of Skype there is STILL no viable competitor.

    I mean a communications tool that will let you EASILY connect with others, on many platforms, easily overcome firewalls, NAT, and transparently handle changing network conditions with relative grace. Simple to setup, Easy to locate and add people, and a UI that mostly works.

    For now, until a competitor becomes as easy to use as Skype, it is here to stay.

    Sure, the

  • will eat M$'s lunch soon. Their doing their initial roll-out [techcrunch.com] for video, plus Slack has a growing third-party dev ecosystem. Of course, M$ will probably just swoop in and buy Slack up if it ever actually gets too annoying and strangle it just like their doing to Skype. And I just love how Skype argues with me about actually closing it out, practically begging me to keep it running.

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