Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft To Can Skype API; Third-Party Products Will Not Work
Mark Gibbs writes "If you've recently fired up Skype you may have noticed a dialog box with a warning appear briefly (at least on OS X) then vanish. If you're fast enough to catch it you'll find that it's warning you that some application you're using that works with Skype will stop working in December, 2013. This applies to all sorts of software supporting headsets, cameras, ... you name it."
It's also thoroughly backdoor'd, feature paywalled, and has shitty audio, even in 'hd' mode... It's also got a shitty GUI and ads.
Jitsi, despite its being written written in java, is a better deal. It's crypted, supports virtually every useful codec and does not require third party servers. Of course, you can use it with third parties if desired. Because of this, it can be configured to offer much better audio quality, which is a major issue with these things it seems. All people care about is the video I guess.
Well jitsi does voice in a variety of protocols, video (up to 720p) via h263 or h264, conference audio/video/im, and can work p2p/SIP, infrastructure SIP, or piggyback onto a variety of IM services. I don't know about android et al, but I imagine SIP clients for those platforms would work. It has no artificial limits on numbers of participants in conference calls.. It also crypts all communications with ZRTP. My only gripe with it is that the client GUI is written in java.
Honestly, audio quality is my primary pet peeve of skype. Whatever codec they use clobbers consonant sounds, even in 'hd' calls.. In contrast, I've gotten some nice high quality voice calls with jitsi.
https://jitsi.org/
Developers have already gotten on top of this. There are about a half dozen excellent cross-platform SIP applications out there. Jitsi, IMHO, blows away Skype. There is also Blink, despite the name it's good, too. These are the top two and are cross-platform. Use either to connect to either, they both work well.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.