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Skype For Linux: Dead? Or Just Resting?
New submitter somebearouthere writes: Skype for Linux was updated in 2014 to v4.3 and has since sat there without an update while its counterpart on other platforms has been receiving updates. Sometime in 2015, Microsoft quietly abandoned that version of the product, showing back to Linux users who had paid for subscriptions with the expectation that one day they too would be able to finally use group video chat, have a real 64-bit version available and get an improved UI. Skype developers have just thrown in the towel and it has left the user base frustrated. Last month many users reported that Microsoft had broken the app's ability to join calls. Two Linux enthusiasts penned the issue in a blog signed by "lots of angry Linux users." I have contacted Microsoft numerous times over the past few weeks but it remains tight-lipped on the matter. I have a feeling Microsoft isn't going to update Skype for Linux.
Did anyone really expect anything different when Microsoft bought them?
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
That is what Skype for Web is for.
Get your PostgreSQL here: http://www.commandprompt.com/
Aren't we past the point of requiring native clients?
WebRTC has taken over and web standards are becoming more capable all the time. If Microsoft doesn't step up their game they will be replaced.
It's annoying that they're doing this, but at least there's a FLOSS project aimed at replacing Skype that's also cross-platform: https://tox.chat/
Embrace and extinguish. Brings back memories of RAV antivirus.
It will be back when Microsoft releases their Linux distribution.
Ask you to change the architecture from x86 to AMD64 then the next time you run apt-get, most of your packages get erased and you can no longer run 64 bit apps. It's a complete disaster.
So they can communicate with the people who are not clued in enough to use free software.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The thing with software is that it doesn't degrade over time. Just because you don't have the 'new shiny', doesn't mean the older versions stop working. My copy of Skype v4.3.0.37 is running perfectly fine for me (on RHEL v6.7 64-bit).
I know it's hard to believe, but some of us Linux users do actually have friends, family, or business contacts who are members of the other 80+% of the population that uses Windows. My social life is a higher priority than tinfoil-hattery, even though I am not happy about the NSA spying on everything and everyone "just in case".
.. that will now promote alternatives over Skype. It seems very stupid by Microsoft to abandon those multiplicators.
My social life is a higher priority than ethics, morals, principles, or even my own civil rights...
FTFY
How is it "unethical" or "immoral" for me to prioritize the other people in my life, over my own privacy?
The NSA are the peeping Toms, not me. You are blaming the victim.
...and not only because their Linux client is both outdated and shit. There's are just so many better alternatives out there.
Say what you want about Google, but Hangouts is fantastic - specially how it can integrate meetings, calendars and documents in a single call.
They're probably just busy rewriting Skype to work with WebRTC. (Or if they're smart, that's where they're expending their resources.)
...on both Windows and Linux. So this is a storm in a tea cup, unless you want to ask the Justice Department to look into Microsoft's activities again.
What are these retards thinking, shouldn't that be #ThanksSatya - Bill ain't been in the drivers seat for a long time, Satya is the replacement for Bill's replacement.
That was a pretty stupid way to approach the problem, regardless of how frustrating Microsoft might be acting on this issue.
I'll believe it when NetCraft confirms it.
Then there's work, where you need to keep in touch with remote teams/colleagues. Years ago Skype was the best tool for casual VOIP calls, and that stuck in the professional environment, especially in middle-to-large sized companies. It won't be easy to escape the Skype curse, or not until a better alternative proves itself.
GENERATION 27: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
https://jitsi.org/ It looks quite good. this may be a blessing. Microsoft recently put word out about "bots" guiding you on things like vacations, products and so forth. in other words, Microsoft, is using Skype to anayze your communications and push ads. Not that I'm surprised. MS has historically been friendly to Linux and only recently even remotely tried to show some level of cooperation. MS SQL Server for Linux was an interesting step, but of course they can pull the pug at any time, which given this news (okay, not news...I've been wondering about this for awhile). Of course Android is killing MS on tablets and phones. Anyway, we've been patient enough. Time to try something different. Plus, did we really want Microsoft's spyware (ahem, "enhanced features") running on our Linux workstations? This could be a blessing in disguise telling us to give up hopes on MS and embrace the superior software projects in our grasp and encourage our friends/family to do the same.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
Getting laid helps propagate the species; being a tinfoil-hat-wearing shut-in does not. One of those choices leads to the continuation of the species; the other does not. Care to guess which is which?
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
As far as I can tell based on the leaks from Snowden, and my own rather deep understanding of how modern computers work, the NSA is pretty much going to spy on me, my friends, and everyone on the internet regardless of whether I use Skype or not. Moreover, the main practical alternative to Skype in my life, is my cellphone which is no better as far as spying goes.
I am not "tolerating" the trampling of our rights; I simply do not see a meaningful technological alternative short of becoming a Luddite or a friendless recluse.
(I do not believe that Tor, encrypted email, etc. would actually be secure for my day-to-day communications, in practice. Too many other layers of the technology stack - the web browser, the operating system, the firmware, and my internet service - are readily compromised in ways that I cannot really do anything about. The "anonymity" provided by Tor would be easily pierced if I just used it to talk to all the same people that I know in real life.)
And why? Just so you can get laid? Lame.
Get your mind out of the gutter. People are not just sex objects, and I'm not interested in a long-distance relationship (the only kind that might require Skype), anyway.
So now you're saying Skype is vital to the continuation of the species, but reigning in unconstitutional government actions isn't? PLEASE. There was some moral high ground around here you were trying to stand on, I think, but I'm not seeing it anywhere.
Right, now if you don't use Skype you must be a friendless recluse, or a LUDDITE? Earlier your argument was that you were using Skype because its all your oh-so-important social connections that would evaporate if you didn't use THEIR favorite chat client. I'm sorry, you've gone 180 on the justification for your stance. I'm not sure you really understand any of these concepts you claim to value.
an overwhelming amount of Linux users are mindful about their privacy. Why would they use Skype?
Did you even read what I wrote?
You don't have to use Skype, specifically - but the phone system, email (and snail mail, for that matter), Facebook, Google Hangouts, and pretty much any other modern communication system you could name all have the same problem.
And yes - refusing to call, text, or (e)mail people is a pretty good way to make yourself into a friendless (and likely jobless) recluse.
I get it ... you recognize that it's Monty Python, and that it has something to do with being incapacitated. Unfortunately, you've committed a faux pas by selecting a quote that's from The Holy Grail, when there were so many others that would've been appropriate from that scene alone. As 'resting' and 'pining for the fjords' have already mentioned, you still had your option of either side of the conversation, either claiming it's dead or denying it.
I personally would've gone with a 'stunned' or 'prolonged squawk' reference ... maybe 'nailed to the perch' reference if those had already been mentioned:
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Getting laid
That sure is an odd spelling of "Skype".
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
I know people who work for the United Nations. They all use skype constantly. Even those in IT who really should know better. I'm sure the 3-letter folks love the easy access. Lock down and firewall windows telemetry? Sure, go ahead. We have this little icon in your system tray....
On the one hand you take life too seriously, and on the other, you do not take playful existence seriously enough. Seth
Warning: this is tin-foil-hat logic, but stick with me on this... Microsoft made 2 massive "purchases" of non-revenue-generating technologies [Hotmail and Skype]. In the case of Hotmail, they instantly got access to all traffic [metadata and content]. In case of Skype, one of the first things they did was re-configure the software to force all communications to route through their servers. For those who don't know, the pre-Microsoft versions of Skype only needed the Skype core servers to work out if their counterparty was "on line" and to pick up their IP address. The call setup and handling was done endpoint-to-endpoint with no server interaction. Now we learn, thanks to Edward Snowden, that the "Five Eyes" agencies are sucking up all net traffic for analysis... Now, I have ***ZERO*** hard evidence, but riddle me this: why would Microsoft take a service like Skype [one with limited revenue] and buy it in the first place? Having bought it, why would they massively increase the operational costs by forcing all traffic to go through Microsoft owned servers - infrastructure they would have to pay for? Just the cost of that infrastructure would have wiped out any profits from Skype for decades in advance... Unless [tinfoil hat please] they were getting massive tax breaks or other deals from the government, to off-set against the costs... If there is any shred of fact in the complete fiction/theory I've written here, then Microsoft didn't really pay that full price for Skype: or, if they did, they had help.
"with the expectation that one day they too would...get an improved UI"
I must say that was a very, very naive expectation. The best version of Skype was around 4.0, since then it's got worse and worse: slow, bloated, adware, enforced updates and riddled with usability bugs.
Just ditch Skype fuck em if they can't take a joke. Hangouts seems to be a decent replacement and does not require a client at all.
Well said. It seemed Ubuntu was making valiant strides into the market, but then they abandoned the desktop as their primary target in favor of touchscreen devices. Maybe that will turn out well for them in the long term, but it sapped much of the momentum desktop Linux had accumulated, leaving the playing field if anything worse than before they arrived. Sure, there's plenty of spinoffs replacing the GUI with more desktop-friendly alternatives, but fragmentation is once again running free, and even collectively the alternatives lack the energy and momentum that Ubuntu had built.
A sad state of affairs, especially considering that 90% of Ubuntu's desktop shortcomings can be resolved simply by replacing their taskbar with a more desktop-friendly alternative. I'm currently running Ubuntu with the sidebar hidden in favor of an Xfce panel sporting Whisker Menu in the corner and vertical "bookshelf" application buttons (plus lots of shortcuts and custom menus), and am as happy as I've ever been with a desktop experience. Ubuntu's settings and infrastructure are as solid and polished as ever, and for a paltry few dozen megabytes the Xfce panel gives me a traditional, and highly configurable, desktop experience that I've fine tuned more easily and effectively than anything else I've ever used, including all the newfangled KDE, Gome, Windows 8/10 etc. interfaces that seem to be desperately rying to be the "next big thing" while failing to actually deliver on a simple, stable platform that lets me concentrate on getting work done. And before you ask, yes, I've tried Xfce-based distros. The panel is excellent, the rest... well there's a lot of room for improvement before it can compete with Ubuntu.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I did, but you're still missing out on the fact that I hold you liable for folding to your "peers" instead of teaching them about secure communications. There *is* still such a thing as secure communications, you know. You owe it to your friends and relatives to teach them the right way to do things... unless you're saying there isn't a right way, in which case, YOU are the luddite. (you should probably look up Luddite, i think you confused the term to mean "anyone who doesn't just download and blindly install everything anyone tells them to")
I personally prefer Hangouts. It runs on all platforms and seems pretty close on all.
Getting laid helps propagate the species; being a tinfoil-hat-wearing shut-in does not. One of those choices leads to the continuation of the species; the other does not. Care to guess which is which?
That's just the heterosexuals, trampling all over the reproductive rights of everyone else. I blame them for only allowing the species to propagate by them getting laid.
Skype, overall, always sucked. MS hasn't made it much worse. It's pretty much the same as ever. Horrible interface, horrible chat, decent video/voice calling. I don't even see why you guys care so much. There are tons of other options out there. If you use Skype to connect to friends.. your dumb. It's not good for that. It's not a good main IM/communications platform. It's for occasional video/voice chat. Sad.. but true. MS could make it better, but that would mean making it nothing like Skype ever was.
To add fuel to your fire, read some reports of the (attempted) reverse engineering of the client.
When M$ bought it, Skype was already a marvel of black-hat anti-tampering, anti-debugging, anti-reverse engineering techniques. It's pretty much state-of-the-art on that, on top of having arguably the best VOIP codec.
Is that the kind of sw. you want running on your device?
1) i've had no problem running 32 bit binaries on 64 bit systems, so wtf?
2) don't know much about kernel hacking but pretty much rule #1 is don't break userland, so wtf?
3) this is a plus! fuck 'em
There *is* still such a thing as secure communications, you know.
For practical purposes - there really isn't for the average man on the street (in the West, at least).
Businesses (whether employers, vendors, or service providers) generally use some combination of phone, fax, email, and snail mail. All of those systems are thoroughly compromised. Email could theoretically be semi-secure - but that would require both ends of the conversation to be using computers that didn't rely upon millions of lines of poorly-vetted and/or proprietary code to function.
As for friends and family - many of mine are simply not tech-savvy enough to correctly use and maintain a "secure" computer communications set-up, even if I taught them how.
If you really think that the general public is capable of keeping their electronic communications private from the NSA using present-day civilian tech, you are either living in a fantasy world, or have a poor grasp of how computer security (and probably computers in general) actually work.
1. You can still run 32 bit binaries on 64 bit systems. /etc/machine-id not good enough?
2. Fair enough, but most people that distribute Linux software in binary form also include the required libraries to avoid the issue.
3. Is
Huh, didn't realize that Skype stopped working on linux. Probably because I've pretty much exclusively used google hangouts for the last few years.
But Microsoft Loves Linux, right? I mean, that's the current slogan going around, what with all the new Linux-friendly shit they've been doing recently with the open sourcing of various tools to the Ubuntu integration into Windows 10. You mean to tell me that they're still the bullshit artists that they've always been and their word has been worth nothing?
I'm still amazed people think Microsoft has really changed. Yes, they've changed in so far as having to directly address areas in which they have competition, but for many other areas, history has shown that they really are much the same as they've always been. And what's worse, people defend their behavior (particularly at places like Neowin.net) and think Slashdotters are just too negative. It's fucking annoying.
As far as I can tell the Skype web app doesn't work in Linux. I've tried it with Firefox, Chromium, Chrome, and Opera all of which work fine with WebRTC and web conferencing software, which I use regularly.
It's not much of a problem because unlike a typical Windows install where you've got too much third party legacy cruft, a Linux install might be 100% free of 32-bit binaries.
It's my duty to use Skype so that the NSA's servers are cluttered with my uninteresting conversations, making it harder for them to find what they want. I do it to protect you.
This space intentionally left blank
Having lots of binaries (in the sense of closed source applications you cannot simply recompile) is the main reason to run Windows, period.
It is not just a matter of ancient binaries, the closed source development model still dominates on Windows. Even Linux is not entirely free of it, a lot of business software is closed source even there (Oracle comes to mind). And with close source often comes the necessity to keep old binaries running.
C - the footgun of programming languages
Skype was already switching away from P2P when they were acquired. This was fairly widely reported. Their P2P algorithm sucked, and was responsible for at least a couple global service outages. It just didn't scale as well as dedicated hardware.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Uh, like Skype and WhatsApp users did...... You could just say "I'm on Signal" or whichever app you choose.
So I must be a rarity, I use linux exclusively on my desktops since a dozen years.
Yeah, just keep a couple of cores free to run all the malware.
It's our fault to not having found the time and energy to converge to some other free alternatives (and there are). With people keeping using what's more convenient at the moment, other programs do not reach the critical mass needed to become useful.
That's nonsense.
Linux marketshare in web statistics has grown from about 1% ten years ago to about 2% now. That of course is still a small percentage, nevertheless it is twice as large as it was ten years ago and it now grows at a faster rate because of the privacy issues of Windows 10.
In just 3 years, Linux could breach 3%.
So yeah, Linux grows on the desktop, Linux succeeds on the desktop - it just happens at a glacial speed and will take many decades.
I switched to Linux as my main desktop and laptop os several years ago. In the past two years I've seen more of my students using some version of Linux (usually mint) on their personal computers. At one of my jobs Linux is used on most computers both personal and server.
It's anecdotal evidence, but it doesn't seem to me that the Linux desktop is suffering.
I am glad they are not updating it; look at what's going on with Skype on Windows - it gets bloated, it has advertisements, it tries to convince you to switch to a Microsoft account, etc.
The Linux version does not have any of these "features" and I prefer it that way. Hopefully, they won't change the protocol to force everyone to get an update.
The saddest poem
I bought a cellphone that had Skype built in. That was the sole and entire reason for buying that particular phone in 2010.
Since Microsoft's first "update" it hasn't worked.
Microsoft not only deliberately killed Skype for my phone, they have also discontinued development on the platform.
No warning, either. BAM! Stopped working BETWEEN CALLS.
Cunts.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
3. Is /etc/machine-id not good enough?
No. It's easily changed, and it doesn't fingerprint your machine in a non-repudiable way.
If a copy of "Steamboat Willy" gets out there , Disney wants to be able to trace it back to the person who paid for it, and then put it up on TorrentFreak do that they can send the Imperial Storm Troopers (Disney owns those now) over to your house and flog you for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The point is to uniquely identify a machine so as to make the owner of the machine legally culpable.
If people would adopt open standards like SIP we wouldn't be in this mess.
If SIP wasn't crap, people would have adopted it. There is no good way to make SIP work short of ensuring that every ISP maintains a STUN/ICE/Turnserver. Sip was never designed to work via NATs, much less the multi-level NATs most cell-service providers put their handsets through. Even with STUN or a full TURN server installed, you aren't going to get very far.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Skype for Windows has been screwed up seriously last couple of years. Skype for Linux is still buggy, granted, but it's not full of ads.
If it works... it's good enough.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
Google Hangouts is technically superior.
Here's the proof (or opinion)
http://www.cloudpro.co.uk/saas...
My friends and I actually started using hangouts once I switched to Linux about a month ago, Skype works, but is far too problematic and doesn't support group video chat, at least in my case.
I love the fact that you can limit the bitrate on incoming and outgoing video feeds as well.
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
There shouldn't be a Skype "client" at all. Microsoft should be focusing all its energy on making Skype (and also "Skype for Business," formerly known as Lync) work inside a browser using WebRTC. We have the browser technology now. Standalone apps are so 20th century.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
TouchÃ!
*WHOOSH*
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
see http://www.mumble.info/ / https://wiki.mumble.info/wiki/...
If you really think that the general public is capable of keeping their electronic communications private from the NSA using present-day civilian tech...
No, you're missing my point entirely. I'm not suggesting they can do any of that without help. I'm blaming you personally for being complicit by using Skype instead of setting a good example. I'm in fact accusing you of being culpable simply because you're going along with it willingly, instead of doing your best as one of the few who knows better to guide the sheep (these friends and family who you claim are so important to you) away from the slaughterhouse.
And, just in case you're wondering if the fact I got downmodded to "troll" validates or justifies your stance on this matter; it doesn't. It just proves you're following the herd, and even defending their murderers... while followiong them right onto the killing floor.
Skype was an amazing thing back in 2003, when we didn't have a lot of options. Today, modern browsers come with video conferencing embedded (WebRTC), so you can start a chat with anyone, on any platform, by creating a simple "conference" in talky.io and giving the link using any IM program to the person you want to talk to. Why even bother with skype in 2016?
Was it even ever alive? It has never been a usable piece of software on any of my linux installs...