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To those who aren't familiar with how to use WebRTC: I've used appear.in (WebRTC-powered) a few times for meetings. It's so much better than Skype.

WebEx official slogan is: the only application with worse Linux support than Skype.

Slack seem to be recommending appear.in as an alternative. What little information about it seems to suggest that it will be better than Slack for privacy and monitoring and similar for security.

https://webrtc.org/ "WebRTC is a free, open project that provides browsers and mobile applications with Real-Time Communications (RTC) capabilities via simple APIs. The WebRTC components have been optimized to best serve this purpose."

You can host it yourself, internal, inside of your firewall if you're that security paranoid.

There are also solutions hosted by other people if you don't want to deal with that:

https://appear.in/

https://opentokrtc.com/

https://talky.io/

If you have modern browsers at both sides of the connection (supporting webrtc: http://caniuse.com/#feat=rtcpe...), there are many online sites that require no account setup or anything else, and where a connection can be done by clicking a link. No plugins required.

It needs a separate channel e.g. chat to set it up (where you can send your communication partner the link, or ask them to talk via the webrtc), but it works.

https://talky.io/
https://appear.in/
https://meet.jit.si/
https://apprtc.appspot.com/

Also you can easily run your own Jitsi bridge on a device you control.

Someone should make a simple to install website you can put on your own server somewhere which works like this:

https://appear.in/

It probably already exists somewhere.

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/ , https://apprtc.webrtc.org/ , https://talky.io/ , https://www.voicechatapi.com/ or https://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 send the link, or simply use jitsi and use it as you usually use skype... all free, all working

Again, stop using skype and use open standards

...because M$ always has to be different and effectively proprietary. I've been using WebRTC for weeks now and it works fine. I'm on Linux and it works on every browser I've tried; Firefox, Chromium, and Opera (developer). It works on Windows too in every browser except IE (any version). Try it for yourself for free and no need to sign up or anything: https://appear.in/ (There's multiple other demos out there on the web to try too).

Do you think M$ are afraid of users migrating to more hassle-free and universally useful/cross-compatible versions of VoIP if they see how easy it is?