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Microsoft and Skype atrocity

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Attronarch:
I am at loss of words.

First this:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/skype/forum/skype_accountms-skype_number/my-skype-dual-phone-ata-is-not-receiving-calls-why/e449db3c-4b63-4e81-8d14-3dac0626713b

Then this:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/skype/forum/skype_prevandroms-skype_messms-skype_instamessms/new-skype-update-is-horrible/bcc5c863-6358-43d2-ab1b-b55ff97eba0d

And then, few days ago Skype stopped working for me on my devices using their own god damn OS, namely Nokia Lumia 920 and Surface RT. The only reason I got those in the first place was that I thought Microsoft's products and services would work better. And they did, until they started messing around. Oh boy. Oh boy, not entertained when something I paid for stops working and I am told that "huh, tough luck?".

Doesn't really put a lot of trust in Microsoft and its new direction. Great, great.

dr_andus:
I know it's not a trivial matter to change to another service, but you could consider Google Hangouts (though Google is not a stranger to shutting down services either. But at least they give you plenty of notice.).

IainB:
Yes, when I realised that MS was apparently intending to variously change/cripple/kill Skype after capturing its user base and contacts, I decided a few weeks ago to do what @dr_andus suggests above. As an interim measure, it is OK, and Google arguably offers a better user experience than Skype anyway, though it might not last. LINE seems to be a much better option - or so my family have found - <https://line.me/en/>. It is also becoming ubiquitous, which is an advantage.

Being skeptical of Skype, I never really became too invested in Skype anyway and so did not have a huge base of users/contacts there, having deliberately avoided using it much for years (like Facebook). For some overseas calls, I do use VOIP though, via my telco provider and a couple of VOIP software products. The telco service and one of the software products (Net2Phone) do not give free calls, but are pretty damn cheap (as they should be). One software product (SpeakFreely) is free to use, works via P2P and offers end-to-end encryption. I only use it very occasionally. It could be quite handy for highly confidential calls  - e.g., when (say) conspiring with one's foreign spy handlers.     :o

Deozaan:
Since we're recommending alternatives, I've recently become a pretty big fan of Telegram. It doesn't do video chat, but it does have voice chat (like phone calls, currently limited to 1-on-1) as well as "voice messages" which are akin to instant voicemail or, in other words, you record a message which the recipient(s) can listen to at their leisure in a non-real-time fashion. It also has other standard messaging/texting features and group chats and stuff like that. And it works on just about every platform in use these days. Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iOS, Windows Phone, or browser-based, wherever you need it, it's there. :Thmbsup:

My only real complaint about it is that creating an account is tied to a phone number. I think that's really stupid and would love to have an account not tied to a phone number. But the good news is that once you have your account, you never really have to use the number again. So if it were that important, I could have just bought a prepaid "burner phone" for 1 month and used it to activate my account and then never top off that phone account again.

Since the main draw of Skype is probably the video chats, often with groups of people, I can see how Telegram isn't exactly a replacement for Skype. But I used to be an avid user of Hangouts (and Google Talk before that) but Google's recent-ish changes to . . . well, everything, I guess . . . have made me start weaning myself off their services where practical. I've pretty much moved completely away from Hangouts except for when I need it for Google Voice. That said, Hangouts is still a pretty good solution for video chats, in my experience.

Deozaan:
Oh yeah, and Discord is pretty good for quick and easy group chats, including voice chatting. But again, no video.

In my opinion, it's kind of like Slack, but geared toward gamers, yet still totally useable for non-gaming purposes. I think I prefer it over Slack.

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