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Microsoft Releases 'Next Generation' Preview of Skype For Linux (skype.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the future-phone-features dept.

BrianFagioli writes: Friday, Microsoft released a refreshed preview of Skype for Linux. There are both DEB and RPM packages available, making it easy to install on, say, Ubuntu, Debian, or Fedora. In fact, I successfully installed it on Pop!_OS earlier today. Believe it or not, the new interface is quite nice, making it something I could possibly enjoy using on my Linux machine.

"Great news for Skype for Linux users -- the next generation of Skype for Linux is launching!" says The Skype Team. "Starting today, you can download Skype Preview for Linux and start enjoying new features across all your devices -- including screen sharing and group chat. With Skype for Linux, you can take advantage of the screen sharing feature on your desktop screen. Now, you can share content with everyone on the call -- making it even easier to bring your calls to life and collaborate on projects."

55 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. another useless cloud app by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If I can't use it on my own private internet.. Then its dead to me, Just like microsoft.

    1. Re: another useless cloud app by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yeah, let me guess, no p2p public key encryption? So still just another gov backdoor app.

    2. Re: another useless cloud app by sound+vision · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Skype has been dead to me for years already. No working Linux client, and the windows version wasn't great either. Very few people I know use it now that there are a dozen other ways to do live video.

  2. No thanks!! by Aethedor · · Score: 5, Informative

    We recently bought a Windows 10 laptop for our oldest son. (for schoolstuff, games, etc). He wanted to use Skype, because that's what his friends use for talking while gaming. Skype... what a piece of **** software. After setting up a Microsoft account, Microsoft comes with some bullshit in order to get our phone number (blah blah account abuse blah blah we need to send SMS). Windows 10 and all other Microsoft is nothing but shitty spyware.

    For communication during games, me and some friends use Teamspeak. No bullshit, not spyware, no hustle, it just works. One of these days, I'll offer my son and their friends an account at my Teamspeak server as well. After 2 days, Microsoft already made me hate Skype.

    --
    It doesn't have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
    1. Re:No thanks!! by hey! · · Score: 2

      Tech product development can be a lot like the dating scene: the participants usually have different interests in the transaction. In a nutshell, users are looking for sex, product managers are looking for a relationship.

      This drives a lot of the dissatisfaction users have with products.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    2. Re:No thanks!! by flaming_bird · · Score: 1

      People use Discord as a (voice) chat for gamers nowadays.

    3. Re: No thanks!! by chill · · Score: 1

      think MS is targeting corporations with Skype with all the IM, screen sharing, blah blah blah features.

      Except Microsoft announced this past week that Skype for Business is being replaced by Teams.

      Ready, fire, aim!

      --
      Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
    4. Re:No thanks!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Discord has the same issues as Skype. Centralized everything, 100% controlled by the company, obligatory registrations and what not.

      Apparently people love putting all their eggs into some corporate basket "cause its 5% easier" and when the inevitable happens, then they bitch, piss and moan.

      TeamSpeak is a decentralized solution over which you have full control. Discord is another example of why the net is marching towards the Chinese model of "freedoms", no government intervention required whatsoever.

    5. Re:No thanks!! by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Microsoft comes with some bullshit in order to get our phone number (blah blah account abuse blah blah we need to send SMS)

      Sounds like you didn't set a recovery email. Skype / Microsoft haven't asked for my phone number, though if there's anyone competent at MS they have it from my last RMA which was initiated using the support page linked to my Microsoft account.

      It's a phone number. We used to put them in giant books with lists along with your home address. I can't say I really feel you're being oppressed here.

    6. Re:No thanks!! by nadaou · · Score: 1

      Try Jitsi meet. Fully FOSS, no client install needed, runs in the browser. Run your own relay server if you like.

      https://meet.jit.si/

      --
      ~.~
      I'm a peripheral visionary.
    7. Re:No thanks!! by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

      Try Jitsi meet. Fully FOSS, no client install needed, runs in the browser. Run your own relay server if you like.

      Website that doesn't work AT ALL unless you enable javascript.

      (Sure you need to give them access to your browser to run the software. But just to find out about it?)

      --
      Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
    8. Re: No thanks!! by mukinrestak · · Score: 1

      Good lord, man. That's enough booze for you!

  3. Closed source, so what else is happening? by lalleglad · · Score: 2

    As with all closed source, you never really know what is going on underneath.
    I know that most people don't actually check open source software, but at least the possibility is there, which should keep people creating it more honest.

    As MS is not the friend of Open Source or Free Software, and never has been, I am always reluctant to use their software, especially on Linux, which they still really really don't like!

    1. Re:Closed source, so what else is happening? by ledow · · Score: 2

      It's recording your voice and video and sending to server which relays it to a third-party. That much is obvious, because that's what it's for.

      If you mean "what ELSE is it doing on my computer", that's what permissions are for. It's literally not a worry if you have any semblance of a secure setup whatsoever.

      If you mean "what ELSE are MS doing with the data except sending it to the person the other end", that's a question for Microsoft, data protection regulators, and server-operators.

      But NONE of those questions are answered even if you had the complete 100% perfect source code to the Skype client sitting in your hands.

      You've lost track of things if you think this is a good argument. To be honest, if I use a public XMPP server to a remote third-party, the situation is EXACTLY the same. I'm sending my voice and video to someone, with no clue who they are or what they're going to do with that data.

      If you want perfect-forward-secrecy and off-the-record messaging with verified senders/receivers and everything encrypted in-between, you could advertise the encrypted data on a billboard in Times Square and it wouldn't matter. So certainly you could apply the same to using a closed-source piece of software if you were truly worried.

      Those people worried about "what MS might do with my Skype data" wouldn't be using Skype as service if it came with $1000 and the source code written in BASIC so they could read it. Or they'd be using ANY service and applying proper principles to it.

      As most Skype users don't/can't use OTR etc., they honestly don't care.

    2. Re:Closed source, so what else is happening? by lalleglad · · Score: 1

      Hi 'ledow'

      Thank you so much for your candid answer, as this was one type of response that I could have hoped for!

      In the networked world, I am always concerned about where my data and profiles go, but with companies like MS I am very concerned.
      My suspicious mind probably is based on the fact that I started with MS-DOS 3.1 and Windows 2.01 in the 1980'ies and I haven't seen anything good from that company since.

      Therefore, discussions on what it is and for what, and inputs like this one from you is very important!

      My interest is that we all get more aware what it is that we are using, and the implications on our privacy, which I unfortunately think most people aren't thinking too much about.

    3. Re:Closed source, so what else is happening? by Stephen+Battleware · · Score: 1

      As will all software, you don't know for sure. 1. Unless you compile it yourself, how do you know that the source code published on the website is the same that as was used to compile the software? 2. Even if you compile it yourself, did you write and compile your own compiler? 3. And modern CPUs run into a billion plus of transistors per chip. E.g. core count aside, a modern Intel CPU represents more than one computer. There's the main computer plus a second set of transistors organized into a second computer on their chips. These are complex systems. Most folks cannot know for sure what is running, period. 4. See? 5. And of course, the billion plus transistor chips we use (which are complex) are plugged into mobos with complex arrays of chips of their own. /// We trust because we figure these companies have a vested interest in maintaining a reputation of integrity. Whether the source is open or closed is a moot point.

    4. Re:Closed source, so what else is happening? by Stephen+Battleware · · Score: 1

      P.S. and even if you trust the CPU, mobo chips, the compiler, and that the source as published is the source used to compile -- how do you know some programmer didn't pull a tricky dickie in all those hundreds of thousands or millions of lines of code ??

    5. Re:Closed source, so what else is happening? by thejynxed · · Score: 1

      The problem is, the way our interconnected networks are designed ("the internet") basically guarantees that your data is being read or recorded by someone, somewhere, even if they aren't the intended recipient. Just take a gander at how many hops appear during a routine traceroute. Any one of them could be having fun with your data and there is nothing you can do about it basically. Sure, we created band-aids like TLS and HTTPS to try to remedy the (many) fundamental design flaws, but there is really only so much that can be done to protect data when it travels outside of your local network until a fundamental re-design and re-build of the entire thing with data security as a top priority takes place.

      The information leaks from the various intelligence agencies have pretty much confirmed that most networks and corporations are compromised in some fashion, and many, if not most, software based (and even some hardware based) encryption schemes are as well.

      --
      @Mindless Drivel: 100% of Twitter posts ever Tweeted.
  4. Nope! by Cbs228 · · Score: 1

    Does anyone remember back when Microsoft decided to unceremoniously remove A/V support from the linux version? Calls stopped working without any notice, and a fix took at least four months.

    No thanks. I will never rely on Skype ever again. The good news is that in 2017, there are many alternatives which work just as well, if not better. Pick one and help it grow.

    --
    At our school, we don't earn a degree when we graduate—we earn pi/180 radians
    1. Re:Nope! by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      Alternatives to anything is nice, but unless they're 100% compatible with the software your friends , co-workers and boss uses, it's pointless.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
  5. Lest you forget... by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 5, Informative

    Microsoft spies on you and they sell your information to interested parties: New NSA Leaks Confirm That Microsoft Skype is a Wiretapping Hub

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re:Lest you forget... by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      So does Ubuntu and Chrome.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
  6. Re:Why no good open source alternative? by ledow · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Not interesting, hard to do, hard to compete, lots of patent and licensing issues (you have to avoid ALL the well-known protocols, etc.) and never going to be compatible with other protocols because of the ever-shifting changes (e.g. MSN Messenger video - was documented, but nobody ever got it to work reliably for any length of time before it was changed)

    It was a FSF priority for - what? a decade? - but if nobody bothers to shift focus, funding, effort and resources to it, nothing happens.

    Same as almost all the FSF priorities, it's basically a made-up list of shit nobody wants to work on because there's zero incentive to, and FSF doesn't really help them out at all. Since the early days, just about every non-proprietary protocol has had poor audio and video support, as far back as people using MSN Messenger, Yahoo IM, AOL IM, Trillian, Pidgin, etc.

    I gave up waiting after all that time of literally only having reliable text-message sending, and then Skype and things like Whatsapp just stepped in and took over in a matter of months when the smartphone era came about. These apps are about connecting to friends, and if your friends can't get your app going by just downloading and clicking your name, then they won't touch it. Without that people-network backing, the protocol / app / service is just dead in the water.

    We could have won the whole industry, and become a household name at one point - the point where smartphones came out, running Android, and voice-, picture- and video- messaging were expensive. The WhatsApp era killed it off immediately. But you can't expect people to work for free, and hoping they'd just turn up and volunteer has resulted in precisely ZIP.

    At one point, Jabber and XMPP was used by Google Talk. Those days are pretty dead, I think, and I reckon it was the same reason. "We have an IRC equivalent, that'll do". And then nobody works on the video/audio side, development stagnates and Google go their own way.

    Ironic, given that in things like smartphone-connected CCTV systems, it's almost all Linux, and that's basically the same problem, just in one direction.

    Nobody actually has any incentive to code on this stuff. The Flash replacement that was also "top priority" didn't even manage to make a name for itself before Flash itself was declared dead.

    It's all very well saying "Why isn't there..." but if nobody at these big organisations steps up to organise, support, fund, resource, etc. the project then it's down to hobbyists, who generally all just pick up their smartphone and use a proprietary app.

    Especially video-services. That needs a lot of high-bandwidth, low-latency server hardware in the middle, even if it's all encrypted. It's not just a case of writing a program where A talks to B.

  7. Is a 32-bit version that much more work? by gaiageek · · Score: 2

    Honest question. One of the appeals of Linux is that there are distros that run well on old systems with 2GB of RAM (or less), which I've usually paired with a 32-bit release. Now I guess I have to upgrade those systems to a 64-bit one if the person wants to run Skype. (Maybe this is a good argument to convince them to use something else...)

    --
    www.gaiageek.com
    1. Re:Is a 32-bit version that much more work? by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      Perhaps it's due to Cannoical dropping support for 32 bit in the next version of Ubuntu

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    2. Re:Is a 32-bit version that much more work? by luther349 · · Score: 1

      linux is moving away from 32bit.

    3. Re:Is a 32-bit version that much more work? by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

      32-bit vs 64-bit is not likely to be noticeable unless the processor does not support x86-64. If the processor does support 64-bit memory addressing, then I would probably consider it misguided to install a 32-bit OS, particularly in light of these kind of compatibility issues.

      --
      Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    4. Re:Is a 32-bit version that much more work? by tepples · · Score: 1

      Since when is next-generation Skype ported to "linux on ARM, MIPS, ESP, etc"?

  8. blogs.skype.com unreachable? by Trevelyan · · Score: 1

    Every time I try to go to blogs.skype.com I get redirected to a microsoft.com landing page?!
    Tried in firefox and chromium..

  9. Future versions already announced by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

    This new version is "Skype: Next Generation".

    The next version will be called "Skype: Deep Scan 9".

    The following version will be called "Skype: Voyage into your Data".

    The version after that will be called "Skype: We sell your Data to Enterprises".

    And the final version will be "Skype: You've Discovered our Plan but it's Too Late".

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  10. Re:Surprise, surprise... by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

    What do you mean? African expanded foam or European extruded foam?

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  11. We just sent a code to 7** *** **** by hduff · · Score: 1

    It's the correct number, but I've never seen the code arrive and the app just turns itself off.

    What utter bullshit.

    --
    "I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
  12. Re:Why no good open source alternative? by Stephen+Battleware · · Score: 1

    To some extent the ol' adage "money makes the world go 'round" is true. Non-profit efforts need go begging, while efforts wherein which profit is given at least some account do better. Open source often means spiralling under-cutting - which leads to no profit in sales and only perhaps some in technical support - which means someone sets up a free forum - at their own expense no less - and the users provide each other with technical support, cutting into any potential profit in technical support. So those developing the non-profit software have to do other things with their time to get cash, so the projects gets shunted to the weekends, but after a couple years there are kids to take to practice and shopping and .. what were we talking about again? .. oh yeah, yeah, I submitted some code for that, a couple, no, a few years ago.

  13. DO NOT ENTER A YOUNG BIRTHDATE!!! by gavron · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I fired up the preview and it insisted it wanted my date of birth.

    I entered 1/1/2017.

    It told me I had to get my parents' permission, and they had to go sign up on account.microsoft.com for that.

    Exiting the preview and restarting makes no difference. Skype/Microsoft now "knows" the Skype account
    I've had for 17 years belongs to someone who is 10 months old tomorrow. Wow.

    I won't be using Skype anytime ever again, I guess, or maybe in 18 years?

    Thanks for sucking as usual, Microsoft. Nothing weird about having a broken software lock me out of something I've been using for ages.

    E

    1. Re:DO NOT ENTER A YOUNG BIRTHDATE!!! by rcase5 · · Score: 1

      Skype/Microsoft now "knows" the Skype account I've had for 17 years belongs to someone who is 10 months old tomorrow. Wow.

      Thanks for sucking as usual, Microsoft. Nothing weird about having a broken software lock me out of something I've been using for ages.

      Yeah, that's pretty typical. Microsoft's stuff is usually pretty brain-dead until it comes back to bite them in the ass. Then they layer on fix after fix after fix, making it bloated and slow by the time they get it right, if they ever do at all, usually to salvage a feature idea that was probably a really bad idea in the first place. I've seen it over and over again, and then people wonder why I dislike Microsoft products so much.

      I won't be using Skype anytime ever again, I guess, or maybe in 18 years?

      13 years. The Child Online Protection Act (COPA) requires that any online service that collects personal information lock out anybody who is under 13 years old unless their parent or guardian signs up for them. It's a well-intentioned law that attempts to substitute legislation for good parenting, and is ultimately a worthless law because any kid can enter a birth date that makes them over 13 years old. I had a niece who joined Facebook when she was 11 by simply saying she was two years older.

  14. Upgrade already by ArchieBunker · · Score: 1

    64 bit stuff was out over a decade ago. You've had that long to upgrade. Tell you what, next trash day I'll drive around and pick you up something 64 bit.

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    1. Re:Upgrade already by tepples · · Score: 1

      64 bit stuff was out over a decade ago.

      A Dell Inspiron mini 1012 laptop sold in the first quarter of 2010, less than a decade ago, shipped with a 64-bit-capable Atom N450 processor. But it had 1 GB of RAM, upgradable to 2 GB. What advantage does 64-bit on a 1 or 2 GB machine have over 32-bit on the same machine? Does the larger register count compensate for data cache pressure from larger pointers and for swap pressure when it has to load the 32-bit libraries to run a Wine app?

    2. Re:Upgrade already by ArchieBunker · · Score: 1

      What is your point besides buying crippled hardware?

      --
      Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    3. Re:Upgrade already by tepples · · Score: 1

      One buying a compact laptop couldn't avoid buying a crippled laptop. Even in 2017, Dell continues to sell laptops with 2 GB RAM.

  15. Re:Why no good open source alternative? by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

    Why would video messaging need a server in the middle? That would be better for supporting group chat situations, but that's the only reason I can think of.

    NAT (network address translation) and the exhaustion (and increased prices of) IP addresses. (Also its spinoff: IPMasq) It's what spiked the peer-to-peer model (for ordinary users who didn't spend the massive premium for a fixed IP address) and for years drove the bulk of the public Internet to a central servers / sea of clients model.

    When working through NAT on both ends of a link, the easy way is to use a middle-man relay system at a fixed IP address.

    It's possible to tunnel through NAT. But it's a pain. Even those approaches need some kind of rendezvous server for the two ends to use to get acquainted and establish their direct fat pipe.

    It will be interesting to see if the rollout of IPv6 leads to fixed addresses and that results in more peer-to-peer application use by the general population

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  16. WebRTC is HTTPS-only by tepples · · Score: 1

    Why would video messaging need a server in the middle?

    Because WebRTC is HTTPS-only, and getting a free certificate from Let's Encrypt requires buying a domain. A free subdomain from a dynamic DNS provider isn't enough because of the limit of 20 Let's Encrypt certificates per domain per week, which the dynamic DNS provider's other users have already used up.

  17. Because no true Scotsman runs Xubuntu by tepples · · Score: 1

    Any modern disto won't run worth a shit on old systems.

    Xubuntu runs OK on a 1 or 2 GB machine. Or if you consider that not "modern", please define "modern".

  18. I'm sorry, but MS Skype is pure shit by blind+biker · · Score: 2

    Ever since Microsoft bought Skype, the following two things keep happening:
    - every time you update Skype (or better say, are forced to update because otherwise you're not allowed to use Skype), you can't log into Skype with your existing password - you are forced to reset it. This is a fucking pain in the ass for no good reason, because you then have to update the password on every single device that has Skype installed, whether Skype was updated there or not.
    - you are forced to regularly use your Skype balance, otherwise it will be simply lost after a number of months (I don't remember how long, anymore). Last time I had some money on my Skype balance but decided on purpose to let it expire - and to NEVER get any Skype balance anymore, ever again in my life.
    I'm now using Viber, and I've moved most of my friends over to it. Sometimes I even use FB messenger video-calls. Anything to avoid Skype.

    Fuck you Microsoft. You turdify everything you touch.

    --
    "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
  19. Thanks, Microsoft by OneHundredAndTen · · Score: 1

    I guess that, by now, you already know where you can stick it.

  20. Re:Why no good open source alternative? by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

    But I don't see why the video itself would need to pass through a middleman.

    It needent. (It's just easier to set up - and to recover quickly if the NAT / MASQ mapping goes down, too.)

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  21. The NSA record everything in Skype. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Why are you using it?

  22. "No thanks!!" to non-free software! by jbn-o · · Score: 1

    For communication during games, me and some friends use Teamspeak. No bullshit, not spyware, no hustle, it just works.

    If Teamspeak is proprietary software as Wikipedia's Teamspeak entry says it is, you're making claims beyond your knowledge. Part of your description uses terms which have no clearly agreed-upon definition, and you have no idea if Teamspeak is spyware now or will become so later. For all we know, Teamspeak "just works" to implement its developers' ends implemented via proprietary malware. The fact that we don't know what Teamspeak does when it runs is a problem, not something we should overlook because it appears to reliably allow its users to chat and share data.

    So, "No thanks!" indeed, but I'd aim this message at both Skype and Teamspeak because both should be flatly rejected for the same reason—both programs don't respect a user's software freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify the software at any time for any reason.

    --
    Digital Citizen
  23. Not quite the same, not a response to NSA spying by jbn-o · · Score: 1

    I wouldn't be surprised about Chrome—a proprietary web browser (which alone makes it untrustworthy) from Google (a well-known spy agency). Ubuntu GNU/Linux is a slightly different case here in that technical users could choose to not install the spyware search, but ordinary users relied on better defaults. The big difference here is what users are allowed to study, change, and distribute: Chrome is not allowed to be so inspected, changed, and distributed while perhaps most software in Ubuntu GNU/Linux can be inspected, changed, and modified.

    Raising Chrome or Ubuntu GNU/Linux as being equals in proprietary malware is both not quite the same and takes nothing away from the previous poster's apt reminder that Microsoft is a known NSA collaborator making all but its free software even more suspicious.

    --
    Digital Citizen
  24. Phone #s... by antdude · · Score: 1

    "... Microsoft comes with some bullshit in order to get our phone number (blah blah account abuse blah blah we need to send SMS)..."

    I am annoyed with this from many companies like Google, MS, AOL (AIM), etc.

    --
    Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  25. Re:Not quite the same, not a response to NSA spyin by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    There are serious concerns with NSA writting SELinuxwhile Microsoft has been fighting them and requiring court orders

    --
    http://saveie6.com/
  26. Pretty and Bloated by jma05 · · Score: 1

    Looks a lot better than the earlier version.
    Takes a whopping 1 GB of RAM.
    I remember when it used to consume 30-40 MB.

    Reminds me of MS VS Code in that sense. Very functional, but consumes more RAM than it should for that functionality.

  27. Thanks, but no thanks by Thraxy · · Score: 1

    I am afraid it's a case of too little too late. Skype on Windows and Linux has been a complete and utter mess since Microsoft took over. At this point I've migrated all my contacts over to Discord. It does everything Skype does, but better.

  28. Re:Why no good open source alternative? by WorBlux · · Score: 1

    Ring.cx, and tox.chat look promising. IRC + mumble works pretty well for a lot of purposes.

  29. Wastes lots of screen space by Jay+Maynard · · Score: 1

    That gorgeous new interface, like all of the halfway-recent versions of Skype, is hideously wasteful of screen space. Don't they understand people do other things on their computers at the same time Skype is running?

    --
    Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
  30. Interface for the Webclient by Britz · · Score: 1

    The "new" Skype client is an alternate interface to their new webclient. There are a number of alternative clients that use the same interface. I use Ghetto-Skype and found it to be stable and working pretty nice.

    https://github.com/stanfieldr/...