Why I don’t like Skype (And why you shouldn’t either)

langfeld.me

4 pointsbenlangfeld2 comments

Why I do like Skype - I was able to video call with completely un-technical family on Christmas day with barely any freezing by sending them a webcam and having them dl and install Skype. It really blew me away, first video call on a general computer and I was expecting it to be a lot less slick and straightforward, especially on Christmas day.

Why I don't like it - Linux client is 3 whole versions behind the MS Windows one and it shows.

I don't have gmail. Looked on the jabber site but didn't see anything about video [conference-]calls.

Obviously I'd rather use an open platform and open protocol but it has to be [very nearly] as simple to set up as Skype and as stable in this particular case.

>Obviously I'd rather use an open platform and open protocol but it has to be [very nearly] as simple to set up as Skype and as stable in this particular case.

Gmail already meets that bar for me and my family, and the (Google) Linux client is much better than Skype's. The interoperability with open-source implementations was pretty bad last time I checked though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com