Skype replacement for LM, Windows, and tablets

[Petermint]

Microsoft broke Skype. Skype under Microsoft's rule is more reliable, as an application, on Linux but is far less useful to the point of being broken. What alternatives work on Linux Mint, Windows back to 7 and beyond, and on tablets?

It has to be easy to install along side Skype. Tablets are commonly used for Skyping. While tablets are based on Linux through Android, the OS is often damaged by Samsung and others.

I am looking Jitsi, Ring, Signal, Wire, and others. So far, all the reviews are based on just one platform. I have not found anyone actually testing across multiple platforms. Has anyone tried these applications on Linux Mint then connected to a friend using Windows or a Samsung tablet or anything else?

There are some Web browser based applications but, again, the reviews test only in one browser, not all common browsers.

And it would be nice to have the latest release with automatic updates.

[coffee412]

Im running Mint 18.1 and had been using skype for some time but finally I just got pretty upset with it. You see, I have a friend in England and Iam in the US. Whenever he sent me a file on skype I would just get a link from him. Yep. More M$ watching what we are doing. So, I got rid of skype and moved to wire.

My friend runs windows 7 right now and installed wire and I have it running. I think its pretty nice. In fact, He deleted skype and moved to wire totally. There are some minor things with it but it works and works well. I even have it on my samsung S6 phone.

We enjoy it and its quite stable. We tend to get into Warzone2100 games and have a wire call going while we play.

One thing I like is that the updates are announced when you fire it up for a call. So, I have it update and it takes really less than 20 seconds to update.

The version we use is Wire-desktop in case you are confused about the versions out there.

coffee

[phd21]

Hi "Petermint",

I just read your post and the good replies to it. Here are my thoughts on this as well.

There are many posts on this topic in this forum already.

I also think it is a good idea to use a more secure multi-media messaging application rather than Skype, like "Wire", or "QTox (qTox)" - a tox client (my favorite so far), Jitsi, Ring, Linphone, etc...

But, Skype did just come out with a new version that might work better, and there is a recent post in this forum on this today already.

Revamped Skype Desktop App Released, Oct. 20, 2017
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/10/new- ... p-released

Recent post - Latest Skype 8.9.0.1 Display Nothing.
viewtopic.php?f=47&t=256365

Hope this helps ...

[Petermint]

Wire sounds good. Will test Wire first.

There are many posts on this topic

I found lots of "Skype is broken" posts but not replacements.

Skype did just come out with a new version

That is the reason I finally gave up on Skype. It really messed up Skype. If I were to list the problems with the new version, I would stick to only the top ten problems so that the LM forum server does not run out of disk space.

[lmuserx4849]

Skype 5 was a mess, but the recent release 8.10.0.4 is much approved.

Windows Desktop, Mac and Linux 8.10.0.4 begins rolling out November 6, 2017, and releases gradually over the next two weeks.
https://www.skype.com/en/get-skype/

[prestonR]

Coming from Skype, I tried to move to qtox but ended up with Wire. I found qtox very good but, since there are numbers of different clients with different features and also different issues, I feel it's more a choice for people who enjoy experimenting with tech-stuff. Getting your granny to move over is not as easy.

Wire, on the other hand, is a much cleaner and seemingly more polished app. Works great on ios, android and linux, the 'timed message' feature is great, audio and video works, the interface is very intuitive. Plus the 'ping' feature actually works as a (noisy) 'wake-on-lan'.

So why 'seemingly'? My main gripe is it's use of resources on linux. When idle it runs 4 different processes that reserve almost 500MB ram whilst actively using just under 300MB. I suspect that the reason for this is the fact that the 'wire-desktop' app isn't a native linux app but an Electron wrap-around of the web app. People on android or ios seem to have no issues but users of OSX have noticed increased battery drain.

Selection_003.png

The update process. Like many interesting new apps that attract a critical mass of users quickly, development is fairly rapid. However, if you installed via software manager updates are not getting through immediately, however, the app shows you a blue band asking you to update. Annoying.

One more worry; Wire seems to collect a fingerprint of your machine's hardware and keep it. Try this:
- install the app and set up an account
- delete the app
- re-install and
Bingo, it remembers you and offers you your old login ...

Well, I'm giving it 6 months, lets see if things get better, the potential is certainly there.