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Comment by rbn | Hacker News Reader

Skype has a Win8 App

It does indeed. But have you used it? It is missing most of Skype's features and requires you to sign in using a Live Account.

Merging Live and Skype Accounts is a problem for me personally since I want to use Skype on insecure WiFi (and obviously my Live account is also an e-mail account).

What's the problem? As long as your terminal is secure, the channel should be safe even over insecure Wifi, since the Skype client has a copy of the certificate of the server and can therefore authenticate it.

and you cannot use it on desktop mode. So, IMing and working on something else at the same time? impossible.

Microsoft trying to shove the tablet experience on the desktop is going to hurt them big time. Now they kill MSN messenger, all latin america will be very sad, they still use that software down there.

Have you tried Win + .?

It docks the windows 8 app to side. You can chat away with skype by doing so.

I always seem to forget about this feature. I just installed the Skype Win8 App last night and spent the whole time switching screens. I just tried Win + . and it made the experience a lot better.

I don't have a Surface (yet) but I bet that feature alone makes it worth it for multi-taskers.

PSA: you accomplish the same on a Surface (or other Win8/RT tablet) by either

a) swiping from the top edge to the left or right (current app)

b) drag an app out of the switcher to an edge

[These also technically work with a mouse; but far more convenient with touch]

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