Skype For Microsoft Edge Will Work From the Browser, No Plug-Ins Required
We mentioned a few months back Microsoft's beta of a browser-based intrerface to Skype. Now, reports Engadget, Skype will be able to work without a plug-in (as was required for the beta). However, it will work -- at least at first -- only with Microsoft's Edge browser. The latest Windows 10 Insider Preview build comes with Object RTC API. That's the element that allows real-time audio and video communication without the need for any installation not just for Skype for Web and Outlook.com, but also for other WebRTC-compatible services. To note, Chrome, Firefox and Safari all support WebRTC standards, but it's unclear if and when Skype will enable a plug-in-less experience for those browsers, as well.
With Windows 10 at ~9% market share of desktop OS's, Edge is currently at ~2%. Incorporating Skype isn't going to help Edge attract many more users, if any, since it still is not compatible with many websites and crashes more than other browsers. I use Edge solely to open my Outlook.com mail since the Mail app in Windows 10 won't do the job. The whole Windows 10 situation is quite fubar, it seems to me.
The Skype servers all run Linux. I guess Microsoft finally got burned enough times trying to make IIS do what Linux does, to stay well enough away from that. But they did reconfigure the server topology to make it easier to spy on corporate traffic for example, or anything else they feel like.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.