8 ms·

I've been educating as many people (especially Management and Business people) as I can to switch over from Skype to any other alternative (like Hangouts). Beca

I've been educating as many people (especially Management and Business people) as I can to switch over from Skype to any other alternative (like Hangouts). Because Skype is: * A memory hog * A bandwidth hog (its really inefficient about network usage, and uses a lot of bandwidth even when idle) * Has much lower call quality (a consequence of the above), just try having a call in Hangouts or Skype and notice that Hangouts has much lower audio lag, doesn't kick out people constantly even when screen sharing, etc * Is now owned by Microsoft * Never cared about privacy or security (not that Hangouts does, but Skype just sets a very very low precedent) * Group Messaging is a mess * Individual Messaging is a mess The list goes on and on. Its 2016, and "Let's Skype" is not cool anymore. There are much better options available.

mrmondo 11y ago
You read my mind, while we are 99% an open source organisation we have a couple of managers that are strangely MS centric, if it has their stamp on it - it has to be 'enterprise grade' and there for the only serious option for them.
- ygra 11y ago
  But Skype is a consumer offering. The "enterprise-grade" product is Skype for Business (formerly Lync), which is a completely different product and codebase (and thus, presumably, with completely different bugs and annoyances).
  - omegaham 11y ago
    I actually don't mind Lync where I work, although I exclusively use it for IMing and sending pictures of chips back and forth. I'd personally prefer an IRC chat that everyone is logged into, but my guess is that the less technologically-inclined folks on my shift would definitely prefer Lync, and it's fine for my purposes anyway.
  - crazyabtliv 11y ago
    Not true. Lync is a piece of shit. My current company uses Sky pe for business and guess what is the most annoying aspect: messages don't reach the other end sometimes!!!!! It also freezes, a LOT. We finally forced our manager to let us use Slack and we love it.
anon4 11y ago
Skype is shit, but Hangouts is not even a contender * No desktop client * Connected to your google account meaning I'll need to juggle several google accounts to keep my personal and business chats separate Just the fact it doesn't have a native desktop client makes it unusable. I know there are workarounds I can use like nativefier but it's still not as smooth as a desktop app. Running in the browser: - Gets grouped with my other browser windows in my taskbar, making it hard to find - Notifications might or might not work, depending on firefox's whims - If for any reason firefox crashes all your communication crashes with it - Susceptible to every single browser bug that allows silent loading of extensions that scrape all your data
- asuffield 11y ago
  (Tedious disclaimer: my opinions only, not representing anybody else or my employer. I work at Google, not on hangouts) These problems are largely resolved by using chrome. Pop out any tab into its own window, notifications will work reliably, the security model is far stronger, and most important of all: when one tab crashes, it's an independent process so it can't take any other tab with it. I use this every day without seeing any of these issues.
  - anon4 11y ago
    I'm sorry, but I use my 32GB of RAM for useful work. Once I upgrade to 64GB I'll consider allocating half of it for Chrome.
    - DiabloD3 11y ago
      I used to make this joke when I put 32GB of RAM in my workstation, to devote 16 to Chrome. At some point, life started imitating art.
- TheHippo 11y ago
  > No desktop client Seeing the level of shitty ported Linux programs I see this as a pro. > Connected to your google account meaning I'll need to juggle several google accounts to keep my personal and business chats separate This would be easier with Skype if you have 2 Skype accounts? When using Chrome: > - Gets grouped with my other browser windows in my taskbar, making it hard to find Menu -> More tools -> Add to desktop
perlpimp 11y ago
altho google hangouts seems better, talking conferencing with a room full of people with mic-speaker setup seems to work better with skype. something to do with AGC and controlling feedback better. maybe hangouts fixed it but it didn't work a year ago.
- eitally 11y ago
  Hangouts works very well for this now. Well, Chromebox for Meetings (the business version of hangouts group chat) does. It has hardware support for encoding/decoding and generally does a much better job of it than just trying to use 1:1 hangouts via browsers. That said, it's still far inferior to any commercial videoconferencing product I've ever seen. Literally, the only advantages are cost & integration with other Google services (which is only an advantage if you're already a Google Apps customer).
lucb1e 11y ago
> * Is now owned by Microsoft This is not negative in itself. I don't like that it's part of a bigger company because of privacy and focus from intelligence agencies and hackers, but that's just me. I could imagine someone else thinking it's positive because it shows professionalism. Why is this a negative point for you? And why would something like Hangouts be better, or what would you suggest if you wanted to eliminate big companies' products?
- bigjust 11y ago
  by itself, not a big deal. But in Skype's case, the number of issues I had with the application had increased since Microsoft took over. A lot.
- bobmno 11y ago
  History. MS past is plenty reason to avoid skype.
  - matzipan 11y ago
    Why? Management changes, engineers change, everything changes. Saying "No" just because it's Microsoft is incredibly short-sighted. And even if it were so: the product as it is today was mostly developed while it wasn't even under Microsoft.
    - fredrik-j 11y ago
      No, it isn't short-sighted. On the contrary it is a matter of letting Microsoft earn their trust again at a reasonable pace after almost two decades of systematic abuse. The Halloween documents where published 1998 and it is only the last year or so since they've begun dipping their toes in open source waters. They've thoroughly earned their shame. Besides, even if everyone at Microsoft has changed attitude that's no excuse. Microsoft has had five years since the acquisition of Skype in 2011. Isn't it, by now, time to stop blaming their predecessors and own up to the current state of affairs?
      - 11y ago

mrmondo 11y ago

You read my mind, while we are 99% an open source organisation we have a couple of managers that are strangely MS centric, if it has their stamp on it - it has to be 'enterprise grade' and there for the only serious option for them.

ygra 11y ago
But Skype is a consumer offering. The "enterprise-grade" product is Skype for Business (formerly Lync), which is a completely different product and codebase (and thus, presumably, with completely different bugs and annoyances).
- omegaham 11y ago
  I actually don't mind Lync where I work, although I exclusively use it for IMing and sending pictures of chips back and forth. I'd personally prefer an IRC chat that everyone is logged into, but my guess is that the less technologically-inclined folks on my shift would definitely prefer Lync, and it's fine for my purposes anyway.
- crazyabtliv 11y ago
  Not true. Lync is a piece of shit. My current company uses Sky pe for business and guess what is the most annoying aspect: messages don't reach the other end sometimes!!!!! It also freezes, a LOT. We finally forced our manager to let us use Slack and we love it.

anon4 11y ago

Skype is shit, but Hangouts is not even a contender * No desktop client * Connected to your google account meaning I'll need to juggle several google accounts to keep my personal and business chats separate Just the fact it doesn't have a native desktop client makes it unusable. I know there are workarounds I can use like nativefier but it's still not as smooth as a desktop app. Running in the browser: - Gets grouped with my other browser windows in my taskbar, making it hard to find - Notifications might or might not work, depending on firefox's whims - If for any reason firefox crashes all your communication crashes with it - Susceptible to every single browser bug that allows silent loading of extensions that scrape all your data

asuffield 11y ago
(Tedious disclaimer: my opinions only, not representing anybody else or my employer. I work at Google, not on hangouts) These problems are largely resolved by using chrome. Pop out any tab into its own window, notifications will work reliably, the security model is far stronger, and most important of all: when one tab crashes, it's an independent process so it can't take any other tab with it. I use this every day without seeing any of these issues.
- anon4 11y ago
  I'm sorry, but I use my 32GB of RAM for useful work. Once I upgrade to 64GB I'll consider allocating half of it for Chrome.
  - DiabloD3 11y ago
    I used to make this joke when I put 32GB of RAM in my workstation, to devote 16 to Chrome. At some point, life started imitating art.
TheHippo 11y ago
> No desktop client Seeing the level of shitty ported Linux programs I see this as a pro. > Connected to your google account meaning I'll need to juggle several google accounts to keep my personal and business chats separate This would be easier with Skype if you have 2 Skype accounts? When using Chrome: > - Gets grouped with my other browser windows in my taskbar, making it hard to find Menu -> More tools -> Add to desktop

perlpimp 11y ago

altho google hangouts seems better, talking conferencing with a room full of people with mic-speaker setup seems to work better with skype. something to do with AGC and controlling feedback better. maybe hangouts fixed it but it didn't work a year ago.

eitally 11y ago
Hangouts works very well for this now. Well, Chromebox for Meetings (the business version of hangouts group chat) does. It has hardware support for encoding/decoding and generally does a much better job of it than just trying to use 1:1 hangouts via browsers. That said, it's still far inferior to any commercial videoconferencing product I've ever seen. Literally, the only advantages are cost & integration with other Google services (which is only an advantage if you're already a Google Apps customer).

lucb1e 11y ago

> * Is now owned by Microsoft This is not negative in itself. I don't like that it's part of a bigger company because of privacy and focus from intelligence agencies and hackers, but that's just me. I could imagine someone else thinking it's positive because it shows professionalism. Why is this a negative point for you? And why would something like Hangouts be better, or what would you suggest if you wanted to eliminate big companies' products?

bigjust 11y ago
by itself, not a big deal. But in Skype's case, the number of issues I had with the application had increased since Microsoft took over. A lot.
bobmno 11y ago
History. MS past is plenty reason to avoid skype.
- matzipan 11y ago
  Why? Management changes, engineers change, everything changes. Saying "No" just because it's Microsoft is incredibly short-sighted. And even if it were so: the product as it is today was mostly developed while it wasn't even under Microsoft.
  - fredrik-j 11y ago
    No, it isn't short-sighted. On the contrary it is a matter of letting Microsoft earn their trust again at a reasonable pace after almost two decades of systematic abuse. The Halloween documents where published 1998 and it is only the last year or so since they've begun dipping their toes in open source waters. They've thoroughly earned their shame. Besides, even if everyone at Microsoft has changed attitude that's no excuse. Microsoft has had five years since the acquisition of Skype in 2011. Isn't it, by now, time to stop blaming their predecessors and own up to the current state of affairs?
    - 11y ago