6 ms·

I've managed to setup Telegram for most of my (non-technical) family - wife, siblings, mother (she doesn't even have a smart phone and just uses Telegram as a m

I've managed to setup Telegram for most of my (non-technical) family - wife, siblings, mother (she doesn't even have a smart phone and just uses Telegram as a message client on her desktop. It's a very convenient way to share family related pictures). Voice calls are an excellent addition. If these could now also be extended to video calls, I could likely ditch Skype forever.

kevingrahl 10y ago
A client of mine once explicitly asked to communicate via Wire [1] which is pretty similar to Skype but E2E encrypted. It was launched by a Skype co-founder, is easy to use and has a pleasant interface. And it's open source. I can't really tell if the product really does what it's advertising, perhaps someone with more expertise could chime in on that. I got stuck on it and I'm considering ditching Skype altogether for it. Perhaps not the solution you were looking for but interesting nonetheless! [1] - https://wire.com/en/ https://wire.com/en/
- unicornporn 10y ago
  I used it for a year with friends and family. I have never in my life experienced a buggier app on Android. My friends and family said the same about it. The seem to focus on bringing new features (like an alien voice FX feature) when they should try to fix the basics first.
- Siimteller 10y ago
  It's open source indeed [1] and was recently audited for the quality of the crypto protocol implementation [2]. Not sure what questions you specifically have but I'm happy to answer as I'm part of the team. [1] https://github.com/wireapp https://github.com/wireapp [2]https://medium.com/wire-news/wires-independent-security-review-61f37a1762a8 https://medium.com/wire-news/wires-independent-security-revi...
- lucb1e 10y ago
  I can +1 Wire. After looking into it, I was very pleasantly surprised. It's not as good as Telegram's UI and featureset, but they're much newer/younger still. I'm starting to use it more and more.
- ReverseCold 10y ago
  It's great, but they went JS for all their clients. The desktop client is electron, and there's no way their Android app is native, it feels like a WebView. Native apps really do make the experience that much better.
krmmalik 10y ago
I could ditch Skype once i get video and screen sharing.
- blunte 10y ago
  Wire does video calls and screen sharing.
unhammer 10y ago
Make them switch yet again to Signal? ;) Most of my family is on iPhone's, while I'm using Android. I tried using Wire as a substitute for Facetime (my 3 year old doesn't consider it a real phone call unless there's video), but it was way too buggy and people would just get annoyed. Signal's new video chat, however, has worked really well after it got out of beta. There aren't many apps that manage to do video calls well between Android and iPhone, I'm a bit surprised that that feature hasn't gotten more attention.

kevingrahl 10y ago

A client of mine once explicitly asked to communicate via Wire [1] which is pretty similar to Skype but E2E encrypted. It was launched by a Skype co-founder, is easy to use and has a pleasant interface. And it's open source. I can't really tell if the product really does what it's advertising, perhaps someone with more expertise could chime in on that. I got stuck on it and I'm considering ditching Skype altogether for it. Perhaps not the solution you were looking for but interesting nonetheless! [1] - https://wire.com/en/ https://wire.com/en/

unicornporn 10y ago
I used it for a year with friends and family. I have never in my life experienced a buggier app on Android. My friends and family said the same about it. The seem to focus on bringing new features (like an alien voice FX feature) when they should try to fix the basics first.
Siimteller 10y ago
It's open source indeed [1] and was recently audited for the quality of the crypto protocol implementation [2]. Not sure what questions you specifically have but I'm happy to answer as I'm part of the team. [1] https://github.com/wireapp https://github.com/wireapp [2]https://medium.com/wire-news/wires-independent-security-review-61f37a1762a8 https://medium.com/wire-news/wires-independent-security-revi...
lucb1e 10y ago
I can +1 Wire. After looking into it, I was very pleasantly surprised. It's not as good as Telegram's UI and featureset, but they're much newer/younger still. I'm starting to use it more and more.
ReverseCold 10y ago
It's great, but they went JS for all their clients. The desktop client is electron, and there's no way their Android app is native, it feels like a WebView. Native apps really do make the experience that much better.

krmmalik 10y ago

I could ditch Skype once i get video and screen sharing.

blunte 10y ago
Wire does video calls and screen sharing.

unhammer 10y ago

Make them switch yet again to Signal? ;) Most of my family is on iPhone's, while I'm using Android. I tried using Wire as a substitute for Facetime (my 3 year old doesn't consider it a real phone call unless there's video), but it was way too buggy and people would just get annoyed. Signal's new video chat, however, has worked really well after it got out of beta. There aren't many apps that manage to do video calls well between Android and iPhone, I'm a bit surprised that that feature hasn't gotten more attention.