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

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."

Comments

another useless cloud app

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re: another useless cloud app

[sound vision]

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.

No thanks!!

[Aethedor]

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.

Re:No thanks!!

[hey!]

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.

Closed source, so what else is happening?

[lalleglad]

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!

Re:Closed source, so what else is happening?

[ledow]

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.

Lest you forget...

[Gravis Zero]

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

Re:Why no good open source alternative?

[ledow]

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.

Is a 32-bit version that much more work?

[gaiageek]

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...)

DO NOT ENTER A YOUNG BIRTHDATE!!!

[gavron]

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

I'm sorry, but MS Skype is pure shit

[blind biker]

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.