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Microsoft Finally Releases New Skype App For Linux (skype.com)
Four months after Linux users complained about issues with Skype app -- an update in March apparently broke the instant message and video calling app -- Microsoft announced a few minutes ago the launch of the Alpha version of a new Skype app for Linux, a move that "reaffirms the company's commitment to the Linux community." The blog post adds that there will be a two-hour Q&A session todat at 7AM PDT between Linux users and engineering team to welcome the new app. The alpha version uses the "latest, fastest and most responsive Skype UI." The company also says that users on Skype for Linux 4.3.37 will no longer be able to use the app to make or receive any calls -- so you really need to use this new app. In the blog post, Microsoft also adds that anyone with a Chromebook and Chrome for Linux can now visit web.skype.com to make one-to-one and group voice calls on top of text messaging feature. It is also an alpha version of Skype -- and is built on top of WebRTC standard.
NT
It has deep integration with systemd too. What could possibly go wrong?
No thanks, not on Linux.
...there will be a big nasty popup installing Win 10 by default?
App sounds mobile application. Maybe "package" or even "program" would fit better for a non-mobile Linux OS.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
And yet, the skype password is stored in plaintext in a sqlite file on Linux.
Skype for linux is one of those innovations from a market leader that youd expect if other market leaders came out with similar products. For example, Crispy Creme donuts stuffed with gravel, or new mcdonalds bacon double wall spackle burger.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Every time it updates:
"Do you want to change your default search engine to Bing? (already ticked)"
No, I don't and I never will. Fuck off with your malware posing as a software "upgrade".
Does that mean that it's interoperable with other WebRTC apps? Now that would be really big news!
This also works with Chromium on Debian GNU/Linux.
So no need to install non-free software like the actual Skype client binary or Chrome to use it. The only non-free part is now the Javascript running in my browser and the server-side code.
Microsoft does not protect their user's data, and Skype itself is a security and privacy nightmare: https://www.eff.org/node/82654 (N.B. the EFF is going to update this score card soon, but it's still right about Skype; see here: https://www.eff.org/mention/ns...)
For people who need Skype-like support:
Linphone (up to ZRTP capable encryption)
Ekiga (unencrypted videochat only?)
Jitsi (Also ZRTP+OTR, java, binary components in package, source available)
Pidgin (XMPP, SIP, VV support, but not sure about crypto.)
And a number of others.
It is time to make a concerted push to educate the populace on Skype alternatives and stop government surveillance of private communications in its tracks. If they have a pressing need to know a specific individuals communications, let's make them work at it, so they don't have time to commit abuses against the rest of us!
Unfortunately, they built it on a fairly new OS, making it impossible to run on many still supported (and systemd free) distros, despite there being nothing that's really needed that only the newer distros provide.
Error: Package: skypeforlinux-1.1.0.21-1.x86_64 (/skypeforlinux-64-alpha)
Requires: libstdc++.so.6(GLIBCXX_3.4.15)(64bit)
Error: Package: skypeforlinux-1.1.0.21-1.x86_64 (/skypeforlinux-64-alpha)
Requires: libstdc++.so.6(CXXABI_1.3.5)(64bit)
Holy shit new skype release for linux....
Next we will be hearing of cats and dogs living together...
This Skype is littered with spyware, advertising and intelligence agency collusion.
These closed-source companies coming into Linux remind of a redneck that walks into a fancy restaurant and spits tobacco juice on the floor. No class.
That awesome feature that the windows version has....
Advertising....
Many colleagues were impressed that my linux skype install on the laptop was ad-free.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Sorry, everybody I used to Skype with, we now use Line.. Works everywhere we need.. I used to support/use MS products, but after I retired in 2010, all of my personal systems moved to 100% Linux, no dualboots.. After seeing what a "turd-in-the-punchbowl" Windows 10 is, NOTHING MS is gonna touch my computers/network. Yeah.. I know, big deal.. But its a big deal to me.. MS has gone off the rails...
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
I'm just surprised that there isn't a Microsoft Linux Distro yet.
Maybe even a Win desktop; which I might actually prefer over the current offerings.
I look at this, and the only I can think of is that Skype must be losing market share. Otherwise why would Microsoft care about maintaining it's commitments?
Now that things like WhatsApp are available for the desktop as well as mobile, people no longer need to have to put up with the way Microsoft mutilates Skype more more and more.
I know I stopped using it shortly after Microsoft laughably botched the MSN-Skype merger. The only reason I even still have the client installed is for "just in case".
All DECT phones that support Skype I have tested ceased to work after one of their server updates a few months ago. About 5 seconds in the call the voice on the other side is muted (I think it changes to a codec that is unsupported in physical phones).
Also, transferring files is becoming unusable. Everything gets stored in their cloud, file sizes are limited and images get recompressed. Before Microsoft took over, there was a direct connection between two users after the call had been setup, with the correct ports open you could even make a call without any Skype server being involved. Now everything runs via Microsoft servers.
Is Microsoft collaborating with the NSA?
What is a good alternative? The combination of Hangouts, Slack and Telegram is the only one I found.
A lot of people, including myself, use long-term supported distributions. Xubuntu, for instance, puts out a new LTS every 24 months in April, and it usually takes until August before it has settled enough to enable LTS-to-LTS upgrades in place. I could try to work around this by reinstalling from scratch, but reinstalling is free only if my time is worth nothing.
web.skype.com lets me log in using Firefox, no problem, so presumably it works there as well.
Gerv
It's about opening your code for peer review and pull requests.
You cannot say it shows commitment to linux when it was broken for four months, would they allow that to happen on windows? What were linux users supposed to have done for that past four months? The only sane thing was to migrate away if you were still using it for some reason. If they cared, they would not allow any update to go out without a matching one for linux, and to actually TEST it on linux before releasing.
but the NSA is patient. Backdoors don't grow on trees, you know.
All I needed to say is in the Subject.
I guess, Microsoft, that you are fully cognizant of what it is that you can do with your application.
How hard is it to package the binary along with all the required libraries together. Put them in some directory by themselves, and then have /usr/bin/skype be a script that uses something like LD_LIBRARY_PRELOAD to use the versions that work with the binary?
If you have the right versions, you can just move the real binary to /usr/bin, but you're fine if you don't.
Your distribution could set this up when they package it. There's no need for end users to ever have to worry about it.
Personally, I'm just glad that this is a 64-bit binary. I think this leaves only one other program that I need that is only available as a 32-bit binary (the discontinued Adobe Acrobat Reader for those times when Okular can't handle forms).
This Skype is littered with spyware, advertising and intelligence agency collusion.
So, a question for Linux security guys:
How do we sandbox this thing?
(And how sure are we the sandbox is solid / what unavoidable holes still remain?)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Even though that version didn't support a lot of features, and it's interface was VERY "AIM 1.0" style.. it at least didn't have the giant ads that suck down CPU and actually used the full window width for text.
Lack of Linux support is what killed the office communication server deployment in my company. As the number of Linux workstations increases, we simply can't afford to buy poorly maintained, single platform products. I don't care about the politics of it, or the general distrust of microsoft. However, Microsoft really seems pretty incompetent. Every other vendor seems to be able to write portable tools. The era of homogenous windows networks is long since over. Minimally, cross platform desktop sharing, and multi-way video conferencing must work, or this product will be a dead duck.
You mean like how every time I visit a Google web property they attempt to scare me into "switching to a fast, and secure Chrome browser"? The entire rest of the internet is advertising Google as your search engine and trying to stuff Chrome down your pie hole is it really all that bad if Microsoft tries the same when installing Skype?
Skype video just goes to Microsoft/US Gov and anything they see that may be used against you gets kept. Vids of your kids playing with themselves get leaked too.
Skype is garbage and as spyware as it gets in your home and office. Keep your kids away from it.
Microsoft is not visiting Linux world for your benefit. Remember the shims required to boot Linux on PC's sold with SecureBoot?
gtfo
The app needs to run as root in order to work at all so that:
- It can properly support DRM
- It can have access to all information on the machine.
The only way this app gets on any of my machines is if MS publishes the source (and I can compile it myself).. Fat chance of that happening..
A google search shows that there's an absurd number of choices available now.
Which is part of the problem. If these apps don't federate, I could in the worst case end up needing to install a different app for each contact with whom I wish to communicate.
as I talked to my daughter who is in Germany today, Thursday. Still seems to be working. . .
Microsoft has ignored the Skype for Linux, not just 'months', but more like years. When you look at the dates, you see 2013 and 2014 (when it finished), but the real takeover of Nokia started when they hired in the ex Microsoft Exec, Stephen Elop in 2010 (Stephen Elop hired as CEO of Nokia). It was shortly after that, Nokia stopped supporting the first phone that was also a Linux computer, the N800, N880 and N900 models N900 pulled off shop shelves in Nokia Stores.
Your basic embrace, extend extinguish strategy that Microsoft has used over the years. They just suck the technology and software out of the company when they buy it and within 4-5 years that company and often those products are no more.
Nokia's N800, N880 and N900 models also had two micro USB slots, one internal under the battery that could be used as slower RAM or additional storage, with the external micro USB used to swap in and out of whatever (environments, software, whatever)...still waiting to see an Android phone with two micro USB slots. At least the Android BLU has two SIM slots (two phone numbers ringing on the same phone), but I digress.
Microsoft started ignoring Linux years before Skype was even a glint in the eye of the developers who created it. All the while using more and more of various Linux distros and the Kernel to improve Windows. Pathetic.
How many years Microsoft has been ignoring Linux is debatable, I will say since its inception, but based on the two URLs above, at least since 2010. That's 6 years and counting folks.
Now they want us back...only because they are trying to hold off mass migrations from Windows 7 to Linux because of their new pricing strategy for Windows 10. As of July 12, 2016, two days ago, Enterprise users will be extorted into paying so much each month or $84 per year to use Windows 10.
They want you to think they are interested in helping Linux...you are not that naive are you?
Insanity, doing the same thing, Extend, Embrace, Extinguish, and expecting a different result from Microsoft. I stopped drinking the Micro$oft Kool-Aid years ago, what is your excuse.
I say they have been ignoring Linux since they started, April 4, 1975, per Google (talk about the Ultimate April Fools joke on computer users) or roughly 41 years. But even if you say only 6 years...it is still too little too late!
Monthly pricing for Enterprise users stupid enough to pay it, will ultimately filter down to the Home Users version of Windows. It is not a matter of IF, only WHEN.
To buy computer hardware free of Microsoft negotiated chips that require a Microsoft license, even to run Linux, only purchase your computer hardware from ZaReason, System 76 or a computer manufacturer that specializes in Linux on the computer....does not matter which distro, financially you are better off with Linux + LibreOffice + anything else and just say NO TO WINDOZE 10!
ZaReason will put any Linux distro you want on their computers, while System76 tends to focus more on Ubuntu, fyi.
New users to Linux you have many choices, however the two dominant distros are based on either Redhat/CentOS or Debian...there are many others. A safe place for a newbie to Linux to start would be Linux Mint. If you have a touch screen Unbuntu, but if you do not have a touch screen, just use Debian. For Home Servers use CentOS, Debian or Ubuntu. Use what I have written here as a guide, or place to start, in doing your own homework and decide for yourself.
Google "graphic images Linux Distributions" and you will find family trees showing you all the different versions of Linux and from what original distro they forked out of. At the bottom of this page is one of my favorite family trees: