6 ms·

Stay classy Skype. I wish there was an alternative that matched Skype's previous good qualities (or better). The obfuscation of the OS X Skype client UI, plus

by ary 15y ago

Stay classy Skype. I wish there was an alternative that matched Skype's previous good qualities (or better). The obfuscation of the OS X Skype client UI, plus the fact that they're now owned by Microsoft has cast a shadow on what used to be a great service (to me at least). Surely there is room in the market for a serious competitor.

Corrado 15y ago
Do any of these strike your fancy? * http://www.oovoo.com/home.aspx http://www.oovoo.com/home.aspx * http://tinychat.com/ http://tinychat.com/ * http://www.vbuzzer.com/conferencing/web_conferencing.php http://www.vbuzzer.com/conferencing/web_conferencing.php * http://www.goober.com/ http://www.goober.com/ * http://www.voxox.com/ http://www.voxox.com/
- ary 15y ago
  Maybe. Do you (or anyone else) have a preference?
- kidmen 15y ago
  For webcaming, I've personally found ooVoo to have better quality than Skype.
  - MortenK 15y ago
    I tried ooVoo recently as my significant other had problems getting Skype working. I must say I can't see it as a competitor to Skype. The UI is borderline unusable due to all the flashing ads. What's worse is my contact list of one got deleted, and it was impossible to re-add my GF. That was on day 2. A few days later, she was back on my contact list. I don't trust it, and it's a pain to use due to all the ads and the general UI.
- colinloretz 15y ago
  Tinychat is the only one of these that doesn't sound like baby talk. Skype has done well and become a verb ("Skype me") and I don't see anyone asking to voxox, oovoo, or goober me anytime soon. There is a big gap out there for someone to offer a good quality, serious competitor.
- Legion 15y ago
  Goober is the only one with a Linux client. I may have to try that one out.
  - gnosis 15y ago
    There's also LinPhone: http://www.linphone.org http://www.linphone.org https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Linphone https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Linphone It has clients for: Linux, OS X, Android, and iPhone.
riffic 15y ago
OPEN STANDARDS are the alternative. XMPP and its sister protocol Jingle are all described in detail in either RFC or XEP documentation.
- pmjordan 15y ago
  Are there any implementations of it that actually work well through NAT and which have a UI that non-technical people can use? We use Skype a lot - iChat would be fine, too, but seems to require port forwarding on both ends, which isn't going to happen anytime soon. Facetime forces you to use video, which isn't always what you want.
  - pedrocr 15y ago
    Gmail's voice and video chat works fine and has a pretty simple UI. I'm not sure it follows those specs completely but there are open-source clients that can connect to it. The Google client itself has pretty good Windows/OSX/Linux support as a browser plugin and with the Google Voice integration in Gmail you get a pretty full-featured UI to call both people that are on Google Talk and normal phones. Unfortunately the Google Voice stuff is still US only.
    - pthatcherg 15y ago
      Gmail's voice and video chat now supports the main Jingle standards, XEP-166 and XEP-167. And there are two open source implementations that it works with: http://code.google.com/p/libjingle http://code.google.com/p/libjingle http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/wiki/ http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/wiki/
      - pedrocr 15y ago
        I did mention there were open-source implementations that could interface with it. I tested it against empathy (telepathy based) today and was pleasantly surprised with how well it worked. Previous attempts weren't as successful. I tried with both clients inside the same NAT though so I don't know if the firewall punching bits are as good. Thanks for the clarification on the standards, it seems to have evolved since the early days.
scott_s 15y ago
I use Gmail's video chat.

by ary 15y ago

Corrado 15y ago

Do any of these strike your fancy? * http://www.oovoo.com/home.aspx http://www.oovoo.com/home.aspx * http://tinychat.com/ http://tinychat.com/ * http://www.vbuzzer.com/conferencing/web_conferencing.php http://www.vbuzzer.com/conferencing/web_conferencing.php * http://www.goober.com/ http://www.goober.com/ * http://www.voxox.com/ http://www.voxox.com/

ary 15y ago
Maybe. Do you (or anyone else) have a preference?
kidmen 15y ago
For webcaming, I've personally found ooVoo to have better quality than Skype.
- MortenK 15y ago
  I tried ooVoo recently as my significant other had problems getting Skype working. I must say I can't see it as a competitor to Skype. The UI is borderline unusable due to all the flashing ads. What's worse is my contact list of one got deleted, and it was impossible to re-add my GF. That was on day 2. A few days later, she was back on my contact list. I don't trust it, and it's a pain to use due to all the ads and the general UI.
colinloretz 15y ago
Tinychat is the only one of these that doesn't sound like baby talk. Skype has done well and become a verb ("Skype me") and I don't see anyone asking to voxox, oovoo, or goober me anytime soon. There is a big gap out there for someone to offer a good quality, serious competitor.
Legion 15y ago
Goober is the only one with a Linux client. I may have to try that one out.
- gnosis 15y ago
  There's also LinPhone: http://www.linphone.org http://www.linphone.org https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Linphone https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Linphone It has clients for: Linux, OS X, Android, and iPhone.

riffic 15y ago

OPEN STANDARDS are the alternative. XMPP and its sister protocol Jingle are all described in detail in either RFC or XEP documentation.

pmjordan 15y ago
Are there any implementations of it that actually work well through NAT and which have a UI that non-technical people can use? We use Skype a lot - iChat would be fine, too, but seems to require port forwarding on both ends, which isn't going to happen anytime soon. Facetime forces you to use video, which isn't always what you want.
- pedrocr 15y ago
  Gmail's voice and video chat works fine and has a pretty simple UI. I'm not sure it follows those specs completely but there are open-source clients that can connect to it. The Google client itself has pretty good Windows/OSX/Linux support as a browser plugin and with the Google Voice integration in Gmail you get a pretty full-featured UI to call both people that are on Google Talk and normal phones. Unfortunately the Google Voice stuff is still US only.
  - pthatcherg 15y ago
    Gmail's voice and video chat now supports the main Jingle standards, XEP-166 and XEP-167. And there are two open source implementations that it works with: http://code.google.com/p/libjingle http://code.google.com/p/libjingle http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/wiki/ http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/wiki/
    - pedrocr 15y ago
      I did mention there were open-source implementations that could interface with it. I tested it against empathy (telepathy based) today and was pleasantly surprised with how well it worked. Previous attempts weren't as successful. I tried with both clients inside the same NAT though so I don't know if the firewall punching bits are as good. Thanks for the clarification on the standards, it seems to have evolved since the early days.

scott_s 15y ago

I use Gmail's video chat.