Congrats, Linux users – you're finally officially alpha males... on Skype Microsoft-owned Skype today released a new Linux client that hopes to address some of the complaints users have had with the chat app for months. The VoIP giant says the new alpha build of the Skype-for-Linux software can make and receive Skype calls from people running the latest OS X and Windows Skype clients and the alpha …
thanks to the addition of support for the Chrome browser.
I think you mean Chromium.
Or you could just use Firefox Hello, no need for an MS account that way. Nor fucking around with a flaky alpha build. I suppose it's natural Linux would get an alpha though, most everything they release on Windows (and now Windows itself) seems to be a permanent beta test.
Yet more reason don't regret going the MagicJack route. Grandfathered in for $20 a year unlimited everything and simply plugged in the little raspberry pie like device a few years ago, plugged in the cat 5 to router and the RJ45 for our existing cordless phones, and had to do nothing since.
Careful what you wish for on Linux. Windows Skype got so bad and such a resource hog I went to QQ. Sadly on Linux that only has a Chinese version I can't get working.
So what is cross platform, doesn't need a browser (or a server that might be spying on you), can do text, files, voice, video in any combination?
I don't want it based on desktop sharing etc like Teamview.
Going backwards
Skype used to be good (though a supernode was bad for unwary with fast good connection bu low cap), then eBay bought it. First bad thing.
Second bad Thing
It's gone downhill since MS bought it.
"So what is cross platform, doesn't need a browser (or a server that might be spying on you), can do text, files, voice, video in any combination?"
Matrix.org in combination with vector.im clients looks very promising.
It's open-source and works fully distributed (so people can run their own server if they want).
It provides whatsapp and skype-like functionality. And it can even bridge to IRC.
I have been using it for some time and it works very well.
"It may look interesting but why is it "rooms" based? What I have is a list of contacts, not a list of favourite IRC channels..."
When you privately chat with someone it's technically/transparently done in a room. The client takes care of this so you don't really notice it and it doesn't matter in practice. Also it has nothing related with IRC unless you explicitly choose to join an IRC channel. It's a feature/bridge, not a dependency.
> So what is cross platform, doesn't need a browser (or
> a server that might be spying on you), can do text, files,
> voice, video in any combination?
HP MyRoom may be good for some of these, but probably not all.
> It's gone downhill since MS bought it.
Next software that they are going to murder: MineCraft! They already dropped Linux from any new releases. I'm sure the goal is to get the MineCraft hackers off Java/Elipse and on to Visual Studio/.NET eventually.
That's gone downhill in a big way recently
TV stops working unless you pay £29.90 per month yet their web site still proclaims that it is free for personal use. So why did TV-11 stop working for me then and told me that my trial had expired.
If I am wrong then I'll hold my hands up and accept it but I have a PC that exhibits this sitting on my desk at this very moment.
Don't even joke about that.
I'm kinda lost as to why I'd want to use a product that I don't like, by people that I don't like, to talk to people that I don't like, as inefficently as I can manage--but it seems that some get excited about this sort of thing.
Email: Cutting "Um..." out of communication since I was born....
That might be true but remember that everything you say on Hangouts will be recorded by Google and fed into its AI. IMHO, it won't be long before you will be getting adverts based upon what you were discussing a few minutes ago.
Remember that Google wants, sorry NEEDS to know everything about you, your business, your contact, your Life so that it can sell it to the Ad slingers.
That might be true but remember that everything you say on Hangouts will be recorded by Google and fed into its AI.
The same is true for Microsoft's Skype which is why they can offer real time translations and stuff. I stopped using Skype after dropped the old logins.
I don't use Hangouts much have found it's video and audio to be very impressive. The ad stuff / AI stuff is going into the new "Allo" chat client which, while scary, looks like a good way to make use of the Google Now stuff. Not that I'll be using it.
For messaging and calls I use Signal and Wire and TeamViewer for screensharing.
They broke the desktop sharing by limiting the Linux client to an ultra-low resolution (160x100 maybe?) -- and then scaled this up to the window size. It was too blurry to be usable for anything.
The workaround was to keep using the older client -- but after two years they stopped letting the older version connect to their network.
Recently, WebEx discontinued their Linux support (their main advantage over e.g. GoToMeeting... @#$^#$^).
The only two good cross-platform desktop sharing programs -- gone. However, it looks like there is a good one called HP MyRoom... anyone know how well it works?
Skype? Would that be the dying, formerly peer-to-peer, client that went to a central server the instant Microsoft bought it? That turned a useful single bar of contacts + chat window (when you started one) into a non-resizeable monstrosity? Also killed 3rd party access for those running different chat clients?
Only now being offered to linux?
"Too little too late" doesn't seem enough, somehow. Go fuck yourself, Microsoft. Dry.
Surprised no one has mentioned bit torrent bleep, this works quite nicely under wine for file sharing and voice calls. Also jitsi which can be used for video calls and is cross platform? Failing that viber does work under wine too, it just means having the Chinese spy on you vs the 5 eyes.
Where I would install a binary from MS on any of my linux boxes for which the source code isn't published. Especially one that requires root to install (not sure if it does or doesn't, but I really don't care).
I have no, absolutely no, trust of anything MS does, says or delivers. Period. That corporation has continually and consistently demonstrated that it can not be trusted.
(PS - why do you think it took them so long to get a release out? Pure speculation: - so that they could get the tele-metrics working?.. All in the name of "helping to serve you better". Their crap is so deep, it's endless)
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