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Skype Forcing Mac Users To Upgrade Client
mijkal writes "Nevermind a huge outcry over the iTunes-like behemoth of Skype v5 for Mac. Users with v2.8 are being pushed an update to v5 regardless of update preferences. I even restored v2.8 from TimeMachine only to have it update itself again within minutes, offering only an option to relaunch the app."
It's not Apple pushing the update...
It's a surprise because mac users are usually happy when someone else decides what's best for them.
Because it started before MS took over. Skype jumped from a good 2.8 client on the Mac to a 5.0 Mac client that brought in the awful Windows UI.
Have you seen the interface? No thanks, I'll stay with 2.8.x
Yes. I changed it to "Compact View" (which has conversations individually windowed and not part of the same window as the contact list) and turned off the display of profile pictures in the contact list (which makes it more compact). It's not any more obtrusive than previous versions.
I quit, restarted and even did check for updates. It didn't force me to do upgrade. *shrug*
-Bucky
They are a pain in the ass for average users to install, configure, and use. Skype isn't. That's why Skype succeeded in becoming wildly popular, and those half-assed alternatives haven't.
Seriously, Jabber alone is one of the biggest OSS failures we've ever seen, behind maybe only Diaspora. It got a huge amount of hype and attention, but could never make anything of it. Sure, there are a small number of companies that use it internally, but it has never really progressed beyond that. It has never gone mainstream in any measurable way.
What use are SIP and XMPP if all your contacts are on Skype?
What use is having all your contacts in Skype, if Microsoft doesn't let you access it anymore?
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Plenty of Apps that require connectivity to online networks force updates from time to time. Guess what? Steam had a required update?!?!? Blizzard forced users to run updates to continue using World of Warcraft?!!! Oh noes!
Seriously. I get that there is massive FUD now that Microsoft has bought out Skype, but that doesn't mean every single bit of normal behavior (like locking out and forcing updates on old versions of clients) is somehow a malicious news-worthy event in some grand conspiracy.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
Who is moderating this troll up? His post is utter nonsense and completely incorrect.
"To make a mistake is only human; to persist in a mistake is idiotic." Cicero
There is "Skip this version" button for me? What's the matter?
I do not mind a new version to fix issues. My only pain with it is that some companies force new interfaces on you, sometimes completely ignoring their previous interface's logic. Skype did that to us and every single person I talk to hates the new interface with a passion. When a group of programmers keep wondering for minutes how to switch to chat, how to conference someone in, or why you have new little icons without/instead of text, I cannot imagine what your grandma/grandpa does when this happens. It took them significant time to figure the original out, now they have to re-learn it.
Now with MS as the owner I fear worst. Why ? Well I am not a regular Word/Excel user. I used Openoffice (before it became a slow bloat), then switched to Apple's Pages/Numbers. Both work fine for my needs (I am not a DTP guy, at most I create technical documents for users/techs). Where I work we can get MS Office for free, and I bought a $10 copy for home too.... Then the horror came: EVERYTHING changed since the last time I used the product. Everything I learned/got used to suddenly was hidden inside menus, buttons, drop-downs and sometimes super simple tasks needed excessive clicking. MS does this kind of stuff regularly: with their OS and with their other products. I just simply hate it.
The point here is not to bash MS and Skype for innovating, nor the upgrades (would be nice if I did not have to buy Office every 2 years to read the idiotic new format they invented to make me buy it again though). Companies should provide a way to use their software in a "minimal/simple" mode - IMO 99% of Word/Excel users - including techs/admins/engineers - would only need this mode. Also when you "innovate" keep an option to keep a function in the menu where it was. No one - I repeat: NO ONE - wants to keep re-mapping their brain to remember new locations in 10+ different software every single year.
Impossible? With menus, you just need menu NEW and menu OLD, and just put the same crap in one where you had it and where you think it should be now. Maybe allow the user to publish which menu they use and make better decisions about changing stuff around in every release.
But then again, maybe all the changes make people think that they have a new and enhanced product? I see the same crap in a new potty with new buttons on it year after year and maybe I am too old to put up with it...
I get used to you making massive leaps of faith when it comes to figuring out what's happening in reality, usually relying on your hubris to shape your perception of the world to one that suits your notions of conspiracy, but this one is refreshingly inane. The glaring inconsistency between your alleged scheme and reality is the update isn't being forced to all users. All you have to do is read some of the comments in this very thread, strangely which were posted before your accusations, and you'll see lots of people who have been offered the v5 upgrade, and simply declined to accept it, and continue to run their older versions.
Until you can show that both the update is being forcibly pushed to people regardless of their intentions (both explicit and implicit), and that the v5 being pushed contains backdoors or other such shady, scary things that make you weep in the darkness, you don't have a fucking leg to stand on. Not that wobbly, nonsensical reasoning isn't your forte, so I'm sure you'll carry on, forever increasing the number of players in this dastardly plot you have apparently single-handedly exposed at such great personal risk, and forever twisting the assumed reasoning employed by said players behind said plot into some grotesque New-World-Order-meets-Alex-Jones-blowing-David-Icke-on-ice fandango, consistently trading sympathetic ears for cold shoulders as you go.
It's always fun to watch you effortlessly void your bowels of logic on Slashdot. Your trite, effete offerings regularly remind me of Carl Sagan's wonderful abridgement of the irrational discourse that followed the improved imagery of Venus, when the Venusian atmosphere was first clearly visible:
Obervation: We can't see anything.
Conclusion: Dinosaurs.
Carry on, dear boy.
no but Apple engineered and implemented the mechanism in their OS that allows software 'updates' to be forcibly pushed onto people that don't want it.
Sorry. You're confusing Apple with Microsoft.
You can completely turn off Software Updates. And even if you have them enabled, they do not actually install until, and unless, YOU give the go-ahead.
There simply is no such thing as a "forced update" on OS X.
What use is a phone call... if you're unable to speak?
What's your next guess?
Apple's software never installs anything without user permission. It shows you what it wants to update, and you can accept it or reject it.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
You can do one of two things:
- Find the temp folder where Skype downloads its new copy, find out what name it gives the file, and replace it with a 2.8 version, then remove wheel rights so it can't replace it
- adjust your hosts file so that Skype can't auto-update. Unfortunately I don't know what the updater connects to.. time to dust off your favorite network scanning apps.
On the side, I think we all would do well to keep bombing Skype support with mails that we see abolsutely no reason to switch to the bloated leviathan with the useless interface adustments and would greatly appreciate it if they would at least introduce a "classic" mode.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it well worth the effort.
The mac version does not have the compact view option for some lame reason. You also can't turn off display of profile pictures in the contact list.
I use MS Paint all of the time. When you need to take a screenshot, cut part of it out, and quickly cut that into a new JPG, PNG or into a document it is quite good.
I don't have a graphics program on most of the PCs I use, work or home. I have gimp, but rarely use it.
MS Paint is (was) easy to use, good to use (from a rat-race office documentation perspective) and serves its purpose well.
In comparison, the new windos 7 MS Paint drives me nuts, mostly due to the 'ribbon'.
Actually, while we are on topic, the whole MS Office suite drives me nuts due to the 'ribbon'.
So, you are now forced to upgrade Skype? Well, MS would do the same for MS Office if it could... and appear to have tried very hard to do so.
Meanwhile, this - amongst other serious annoyances (CD music - and nothing else - being disabled, serious issues with DVD software, serious sound issues, annoying system popups) are driving me to install XP over the top of my Laptop Windows 7. Yes, work will move to W7, and yes, I know it's Windows. So, back we go. It's Win98 all over again.
Software upgrades may be a fact of life in IT.. but some of the software I use is over 10 years old now (GMUD is a good example) and works fine. I see no serious reason for the 'improvements' in the W7 MS Paint.. and I'd really like access to the XP version. If worst comes to worst, there is always GIMP.
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it shows up here, under View. Though it's not very compact. You can then drag the vertical divider all the way to the left to completely hide the sidebar. But you can only make what's left of the window so narrow, and each entry still takes up 3/4" of vertical screen space. Gotta love apps that insist on hogging the screen. So close that window and hit apple-3 to view online contacts only. Not ideal but at least makes Skype less of an elephant on the screen.
In addition to things taking up way more space than they need to, the new v5 interface isn't as intuitive as the previous one. Viewing a profile doesn't open a profile window, it CHANGES the current list INTO a profile window, and then you have to click Back. Besides muddying what the window is for, there's no way to for example, have more than one profile open at a time. (ok not that common, but no way to have a profile open while still being able to see the contact list) It's like on one hand they pointlessly waste screen space, and then right after that they're trying to save screen space in a way that damages usability. Makes you wonder if MS had a hand in the design of v5 before they bought skype out? "Hey this has much more of a Windows feel to it now, lets buy it!" :(
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.