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Microsoft Is Disabling Older Versions of Skype For Mac and Windows On March 1 (venturebeat.com)
If you're using an older, outdated version of Skype, you may want to consider updating soon. Microsoft said today that starting on March 1 people will no longer be able to sign in to version 7.16 of Skype for Window desktop and older versions, and version 7.18 of Skype for Mac and older versions thereof. VentureBeat reports: "If you're one of those users, all you'll need to do is download the new update," the Skype team said in a blog post. This isn't the first time Skype is retiring old software. But that doesn't mean the upcoming move won't rankle some people. Version 7.18 of Skype for Mac and version 7.16 of Skype for Windows both came out less than a year and a half ago -- in December 2015. So it's not as if this is very old software. Still, Microsoft has been doing a lot to improve Skype in the past year. It's been migrating the app to its Azure public cloud infrastructure, and adding chatbots. Current versions of Skype -- like version 7.44 for Mac -- come with amenities like better previews of websites and better support for emoticons and other content in the input box for chats. "We've poured our energy and passion into creating something truly special, and this is just the beginning," Skype said.
Subject: Microsoft disables p2p Skype protocol starting March 1, 2017
In a recent update of Skype for Windows Microsoft has announced that starting March 1, 2017 older, p2p versions of Skype will cease to work. This affects Skype for Windows versions 7.16 and below, Skype for Mac version 7.0 to 7.18 and the native Linux client (its only functional version 4.3). This news is especially unpleasant for Linux users of Skype, since the new "cloud ready" version of Skype for Linux is nothing more than a packaged Google Chromium web browser with Node.js running a web version of Skype, which means its memory consumption is huge and it's unable to store your conversation history locally indefinitely like the native client did.
P.S. One can only wonder why ./ editors choose less informative posts over more informative ones.
The last skype for Linux for Ubuntu is now 4 years old. And there is none for 64bit Linux. So there is no skype for Linux. And yet no one cares :-)
WhatsApp pulled that same stunt on older iOS versions just a few days ago. I convince most of my friends to switch to Telegram and Threema.
For business and games we mostly switched to Discord.
https://threema.ch/
https://telegram.org/
https://discordapp.com/ -- replacement for Skype and TeamSpeak
Pissing of their user base ... I really wonder how long companies continue to think they can continue to do that.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Is it just me, or is everything turning to shit?
It seems like every service, site, and program I use is steadily being degraded, feature-ized and/or monetized until it's a steaming pile of shit.
FFS, just leave stuff alone for a change. Stop "improving" everything until it no longer works. I'm so sick of this shit.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...