Slashdot Mirror
Skype 1.0 For Windows Released, Updated Linux Beta
egjertse writes "Today Skype launches its free Skype for Windows Version 1.0 software, which includes SkypeOut, enabling Skype users to pre-pay and call any phone number in the world at highly competitive local rates. Also included in Skype 1.0 is a new file transfer feature and other software enhancements. New beta versions of Skype for Linux (Previous Slashdot Story) and Skype for Pocket PC with the SkypeOut feature are also available. Here are the release notes."
But doesn't work on Windows 98/ME
Candle burns its brightest in the dark
Has anyone tried this? If so, is the sound quality high enough to bother with? Does it ever miss words or anything?
I've had problems with other services like this in the past, but maybe they have gotten better.
Boxing Equipment Reviews
...someone develops a phone that looks and feels like a regular household portable phone, but uses Skype via your home wifi network?
This would be very handy to have on my Powerbook, but alas it seems no such beast exists. If it compiles under Linux, it shouldn't be too hard to do a straight port, even if it has to run under an X client instead of being a pretty Quartz app.
Course, if they had used SWT this wouldn't be an issue.
I can see it now, the new spyware will work like this:
..
When you make a voice call, the spyware will listen to your conversation, then start producing popups on what you say
for example:
Me: "Hi Mom"
Spyware: *incest p0rn popups*
What's with the IT color scheme? It hurts my eyes. ... anyone?
Please change it
It's Windows 98/ME that doesn't work
Maybe I'm just being stupid but I can't find any pricing page on their website.
You could think of us as the big, free Internet telephony company. We prefer to think of ourselves as a big group hug, even a present. Yes... that's it... we're a present... but without the ribbon.
..can't ...hold ...back ...sounds like ...project kickoff meeting.
:-@~~~~*
*wharf ralf barf*
As you can see in the linked release notes, there's a new EULA. It forbids you to make worldwide calls between Skype users so it seems like Skype has contracts with the telephone companies as well!
"I knew it was over when I downloaded Skype," Michael Powell, chairman, Federal Communications Commission, explained. "When the inventors of KaZaA are distributing for free a little program that you can use to talk to anybody else, and the quality is fantastic, and it's free - it's over. The world will change now inevitably."
Fortune Magazine, 16th February 2004
I don't see a 2/16/2004 edition of Fortune according to their archives but I did find an article on 2/9/2004 which I cannot see in its entirety (see here for more bitching about that topic).
One thing I like about Vonage is that you are using a regular telephone (wired or cordless) with the system instead of being tied to a headset that is wired to your computer. There is a USB headset that is wireless. See here. I have not used it, but it is advertised and makes sense that there is a product. Also you might find something with Hello Direct
Fight Spammers!
I've been using Skype at home for a few days now; the sound quality is adequate, and I haven't had any problems with it; its probably equal or better than the POTS.
:)
Plus you can log into Skype onto multiple machines, if someone tries to contact you they both ring. I'm not sure about messaging yet though!
Still, I'll be downloading this and upgrading. I like it! Its definately worth a try out if you're interested in making phone calls. I've only tried the IP2IP connections btw, and have no idea of IP2POTS
Dug
P.S. I often make up words due to psudeoapathy.
Until someone does, Skype, a proprietary closed protocol, but the only "zero configuration" VoIP application I know of, is likely to continue to acquire users.
What's been your experience with the directory listing, ie, listing yourself as wanting to chat via voice? Sounds interesting but subject to the same problems as most IMing. I loved Odigo for its international flavor and ability to match up interests. How does Skype compare to this?
Until you quote the relevant section of the EULA I don't believe you.
27.07.2004 Skype for Windows 1.0.0.9 * change: new EULA * change: minor text changes * change: changed progressbar colors
Maybe you'd like to include a fake quote next time you try an outrageous lie like this, seeing that there is no actual quote in the document you're linking to that supports your conclusion.
To summarize for you mods:
1) There is no actual quote provided
2) The EULA says nothing about 'forbidding worldwide calls between Skype users'
Conclusion: Parent is a troll.
google cache of price list http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:9ixTGC7CReQJ: https://secure.skype.com/store/help.pricelist.html +&hl=en
Is this thing not chock full of adware, spyware, malware, and all those other wares that make me wary? From the makers of Kazaa? Come on, I don' trust Kazaa as far as I can throw it!
Tried the newest version on Linux, still no go for me.
/dev/dsp for both your soundcard and your mic. Unfortunately I have a seperate USB mic and therefore can't use Skype in Linux at all.
It looks nice, loads fast, but you still can't specify what device you want to use for a microphone. It automatically assumes that you are using
I've posted this on their forums but no official response so far.
...like a cordless USB phone that looks fairly normal, and... uh.. isn't $400.
/ on line-store/scstore/p-DH-301281.html?E+scstore+froo gle
http://www.cproducts.com/cgi-local/SoftCart.exe
Yea, found it on froogle. Have at it.
-- Liberalism is a mental disorder.
Awesome, a client for both Windows and Linux! That rocks! I cant wait to port this to my Treo 600! I wonder if it will work on Sprint PCS's 2.5G data network? Any J2ME coders out there wanna help with this project, it'll be uber-r33t. I cant wait until I see the look On the Sprint PCS guys face when I show him that I could just use my data minutes to, um, wait. EERG!!
>8(
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
It sounds like crap and it's delayed.
Okay, so we have BitTorrent that allows me to finally run a true Peer->Peer file transfer, sharing the resources I pay for via my cable modem.
Why can't we take VoIP and modify it to utilize all the phone lines that most people own that are usually sitting idle?
If I want to call from LA to NYC, then my outgoing connection is made from my PC to a PC that has a local NYC phone # so all toll charges are avoided.
As a user, I would specify which area codes (Exchanges) I want to allow people to be able to dial out from my phone with.
911, 411, 976, etc would all be blocked by default.
This way we can use the internet to make the calls to POTS lines without added expense.
There are several *NIX fax products that do this very thing. I would image the biggest difficulty would be getting enough folks to donate their phone lines for this purpose as well as being able to prevent anonymous calls from the network -- one would want a record of WHO called using their phone line in cases of abuse.
www.acmenews.com
...its Qt based. Works great with KDE.
Are you intolerant of intolerant people?
Where's my Asterix plugin for realtime conversion of SIP to Skype calls?
--
make install -not war
Unfortunately it still crashes my Dell Axim X30. Just freezes and on reboot complains about memory corruption.
Remember - take a full backup first using Active Sink so that you can restore from a cold reset if needed. If it works on your unit - great!
What are you, allergic to HTML? here is the cached page. Or at least, that is what google alleges will be the cached page, it hasn't loaded for me.
Why would you want to route point to point calls through a peer to peer network when you can just set up your own personal (or shared) ventrilo server and talk to anybody you want? Routing a latency-sensitive application through p2p just seems dumb.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
from the site:
Latest version is:
Skype 0.98
Does Skype have VoIP peering with other VoIP providers so you could call people using other providers, like FreeWorldDialup, or do they have a completely closed network of its own?
from the article: "Skype, created by the people who brought you KaZaA, uses innovative P2P (peer-to-peer) technology to connect you with other Skype users."
KaZaA??? I won't touch anything that has any connection to that pile o' shit!
It doesn't look like 1.0 to me, it looks like Windows Beta 0.98.0.68. Somehow I think whoever posted the summary rounded up...
Is it just me, or is the Skype site unreachable this morning? Heh.
Oh, right, it's p2p for a reason.
/.'ed ...
How simple are those USB phones in terms of setup (in Linux)? I wouldn't mind paying for one, but as long as I can still use Asterix (or just POTS), Skype isn't compelling enough to mess around with.
And do they have a free trial? Say, 5 minutes to check sound quality, ease of use and all that?
Yeah, I know, easy questions. But as long as the site's
The INDUCE act is trying to outlaw p2p software. Since Skype reports to have the ability to share files, it too will be outlawed if the INDUCE act passes.
You think I'm kidding? Call Sprint PCS information. Not only do they charge you, they run an ad "For movie listings, times, and more, call...".
And it's not even encrypted end to end.
Zero configuration, free as in beer VoIP application with UPnP support built-in. Works pretty well. I've saved hundreds of dollars with it on international calls.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the *worst* slashdot theme, color-wise, yet? I mean, we've had some doozies, but this looks really bad. I mean, the logo looks just like someone using gimp's script-fu and the color very closely matches the color of my three year-old's puke.
Just thought I'd mention.
Works great on my XP. The sound quality for calls within the US was indistinguishable from a land line call. International calls sounded good enough but have a bit of a delay that you have to get used to, it's no worse then a cell to cell international call. I've also received calls from Skypeout on my land line and had no idea it was from Skype until I was told.
They found a crasher and pulled it.
The announcement and Windows version is back up again.
The new Linux beta I have no idea about...
27.07.2004 Skype for Windows 1.0.0.10
* change: updated Chinese Traditional language file
* bugfix: fixed crash on Windows 98/ME
27.07.2004 Skype for Windows 1.0.0.9
* change: new EULA
* change: minor text changes
* change: changed progressbar colors
It supports uLaw, aLaw, GSM, iLBC and speex.
Too bad it's only for Windows and MacOS X. Still, there's gnophone and kphone for Linux.
/Styx
They found a crasher and pulled it.
The announcement and Windows version is back up again.
The new Linux beta I have no idea about...
27.07.2004 Skype for Windows 1.0.0.10
* change: updated Chinese Traditional language file
* bugfix: fixed crash on Windows 98/ME
27.07.2004 Skype for Windows 1.0.0.9
* change: new EULA
* change: minor text changes
* change: changed progressbar colors
It appears that SkypeOut recently raised their rates by as much as 500%. Check out this page here from the forums: SkypeOut Rates
I use it on Windows 98. It works. But it crashes without warning at about the 20th minute of calls.
I guess they fixed it:
27.07.2004 Skype for Windows 1.0.0.10
* bugfix: fixed crash on Windows 98/ME
As of Skype for Linux version 0.9.0.14, the options to configure the soundcard settings from inside the program are still missing.
:)
For those (like me) who use two different soundcards (webcam microphone + internal soundcard) for sound input and output, there's something called skype_dsp_hijacker, which uses an LD_PRELOAD trick to redirect sound I/O to another device. I wrote a small patch for this useful wrapper to enable use of separate devices.
It's located at http://195.38.3.142/skype/
Do tell me if you find it useful!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
ROFL Just installed and clicked "Skypeout - Global Calling at Local rates" and I get a connection refused.
Uhm, that can't be a good sign right?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
I actually believe this to be one of the better themes. but that's just one opinion =)
Uhhh, where are we gonna get that and why would anyone want to run anything on Windows version 1?
Isn't this great? I was really excited to finally use the 1.0 version of Skype, only to get this notification when trying to start it: Skype is not compatible with system debuggers like Softice. And no, I didn't even have Softice running. This is the first time I encounter such a notice. Anyone else?
...is this is what you want.
SIP services traverse NAT without a problem.
There are several VoIP provider that will let you pick your software, and/or hardware to connect to their PBX. I have been using Nikotel.com for that http://www.nikotel.com/.
The only "good thing" about Skype seems to be that the per minute rates are slightly better than the competition. For example, where Nikotel charges 2.9c/min, Skype seems to charge 2.0c/min.
For this price difference, I would stick with an open standard, SIP, and an provider that let me know a Wifi phone if I'd like, or a softphone on Linux if this better suits what I need.
Jerome
Population officially using US dollars : 294 million American Factfinder (rounded up)
Population officially using Euros : 303 Million Euromania (rounded down)
And with more countries joining the EU and soon the Eurozone, y'all are going to need to do a _lot_ of extra breeding to keep up.
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
I'll add another link to the pile.
There is a difference between "insightful" and "inciteful" other than spelling.
It is worth noting that Skype has particuarly good echo cancellation. We use it at work for conferencing with another office, using just a cheap microphone and some speakers.
When I got it I was actually to test it, calling my CELL PHONE, when I realized it was only PC to PC.. (ie, nothing new) I won't be surprised until I can call my cell phone from my computer, or vice versa for nothing.
But does it have a gaim plugin? I can't stand having multiple IM-clients..
The Swedish guy who designed this software has a very anti-monopoly attitude, he sees the (firstly with Kazaa) music industry, and now the telephone industry as sectors which no longer operate in the interests of their customers, so he comes along to destroy them. He couldn't say this so complicitly with Kazaa, but he has been shouting from the rooftops (well, The Economist) about taking down the telecoms and who are we to say that is a bad thing? Yes, he made Kazaa, yes it sucked, but he might actually be on our side, atleast for now (until he gets rich atleast).
Yes but will I be able to call Howard Stern and talk about farts and hairy vagina's with out the FCC getting up in my bizznass?
If you think I'm a troll, well you haven't seen my mother.
Me and my friends have started using Skype and found the quality to be excellent!
I've now purchased my first 10 EUROs worth of credit to use SkypeOut, and all I can say is wow! There is only a split second delay, no background noise, no echoing, just pure telephone conversation, and after a while, you forget that you're phoning via your PC though the Internet, it's really that amazing!
From the release page
:)
Note:
Skype 1.0.0.10 was released July 27 which fixed an issue with Windows 98 / Windows ME.
They are on the ball over there. Class act all the way.
I own a Viewsonic V37 Pocket PC. I had tried the original PocketSkype, when it came out earlier this year. Using an SDIO Wi-Fi card, the speech was stuttered and worthless when picked up by a desktop PC on the same LAN.However, now that issue is resolved. The voice quality was very good, for this connection type.
There is still about 1 second lag before the other end recieves, but it could be a result of my choice of networking hardware. Soon, I will test it with my wi-fi laptop and the Windows version of the software, to see what happens.
-Patrick
"They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
I'd be using Vonage right now (actually returned the hardware when someone in house ordered it) if they encrypted calls.
I think the telnet example is the clearest way of illustrating the problem with Vonage. According to Skype, calls between Skype units are encrypted (at least until FCC can change things).
Telnetting outside the lan is considered a no-no. And even Rsync and Sftp are frowned upon, as compared to ssh and ssl. The regular phone line (pots) is often derided as being wholly unsecure, but you still need, for the most part, a physical tap to compromise pots. And law enforcement needs reasonable grounds (and a judge's approval and oversite) before they can listen in. With Voip, other than Skype to Skype, anyone in the middle can listen in, from my landlord providing the lan, to my landlord's isp, to the techs babysitting the servers rooms at the upstream providers, to the carnivore system at every major hub.
Yeah, I'm not building and arranging delivery of inter-continental ballistic missiles. But I don't use postcards for my banking transactions, don't ship my dirty laundry home to mamma in clear plexiglass boxes, and I don't use telnet across the Internet. Why are others using a form of telnet for their daily phone calls, often as their major or only telephoning ability, and this is considered ok?
Hopefully Skype will force other providers to add encryption. And it will become prevalent throughout the system, as it should.
If they succeed in banning encryption in Skype, why not go after ssh and ssl next?
In the meantime, anyone reading this, and who either is using Vonage, or plans on, please go to their site once a month and search for "encryption" and "security" on their site. Maybe if they see encryption enough times in their logs, they might get a clue, and implement it. Otherwise we'll have to wait for some incidents of interception, and identity theft (and ruined lives), before they're forced to implement it.
this is so awesome...running with kde 3.3beta2, works flawless with arts, perfect sound quality to normal phone lines on the other side of the globe. it beats my satellite phone calls in aspect to quality by a longshoot!
hooray!
Free worldwide communication. To almost anyone else. Free. Free. Hmmmmm..
This would make it so easy for Big Brother(TM) to feed these calls and process them for keywords and given enough storage space keep a record of everything said over the phone.
Bet this
I've been using Skype for about a year now and have been waiting for this feature just as long.
I just downloaded 1.0, bought 10 EUR of credits costing 11.5 EUR including Swedish VAT.
Being midnight in Sweden, I had no one to call so I asked my girlfriend to go into another room to test it with my own phone. The sound quality was very good.
Actually, the first call I made was to my girlfriend (in the same room as the computer) 5 minutes earlier before I told her about it. I turned down the computer sound so she couldn't hear that I was calling. When she answered I turned up the sound so she could hear her own voice echoing from the computer speakers. She got really scared and hung up before realizing what actually happened.
"Skype for Pocket PC(TM) is free software that enables you to make Skype voice calls using your WiFi-enabled Microsoft Pocket PC based handheld computer from any WiFi hotspot."
http://www.skype.com/download_pda.html
I can't believe nobody has mentioned it already, but Freshtel (http://www.freshtel.net/) have been doing this with their Firefly product for months!
The client itself isn't opensource, but it's based on an IAX2 (the completely open Asterisk VOIP protocol).
It has almost all of the features that people are requesting with Skype:
- Multiple "hardware" handset options
- Transparent NAT traversal (IAX2 does not suffer the SIP/H.323 NAT issues)
- Very competitive international call rates
- Open architecture
The developers (A Melbourne/AU based company) have extended IAX2 slightly to allow messaging - but they're happy to release the modifications to any developer who is interested.
I use it to call international and national (our carriers here in AU love screwing us on STD calls), and I find the delay and quality superior to mobile (on a 512 DSL).
In addition to this, they're happy for you to connect other clients (any SIP or IAX2 client will work) including Asterisk to their network to use the cheap call termination services.
Sorry - this sounds a bit like an ad for them, I was just really impressed! (far more so than I was with Skype when I tried it some time ago, which seems to be getting all the hype).
No they don't. They can be made to traverse NAT by a number of different means, none of which is entirely satisfactory or problem-free.
Protocols which pass around lower-layer addresses are broken by definition. However, they do give lower-layer equipment vendors from the Bay Area a marketing opportunity to sell solutions to their own broken architectures.
As far as I can tell, while SkypeOut allows you to make make outgoing calls to landline phones, there's no Skype service that allows you to receive incoming calls from landline phones. If that's true, then Vonage is a better landline replacement.