6 ms·

Yes, please, please, please kill Skype. Kill it mercilessly. Using it has been the worst experience I've ever had with an application. I've been in a long dist

by kyro 14y ago

Yes, please, please, please kill Skype. Kill it mercilessly. Using it has been the worst experience I've ever had with an application. I've been in a long distance relationship for a few years now and Skype has sadly been our main mode of video communication. The app crashes when I search chat history, can take upwards of 90+% of my CPU, literally forcing me to shut down every other application I have running. The forums are full of complaints, all unanswered. We've tried gChat and the plugin either goes undetected or slows down my machine as well (although not as bad as Skype). I'm running a 2010 MBA, so I've got the resources. So death to Skype, and open arms to WebRTC.

lightyrs 14y ago
Have you tried Google Hangouts? I've had some success with that lately over Skype.
- dudus 14y ago
  I would expect Google Hangouts to use webRTC when available and use the Talk plugin only as a fallback.
- neutronicus 14y ago
  I love Google Hangouts, and prefer them to Skype, but they bring my laptop to its knees. Multicolored pinwheels everywhere.
- irollboozers 14y ago
  Meetings.io was our go-to service for a while, it was just so insanely better than Google hangouts and skype. It showed so much promise, until sadly they were acquired and now it sucks.
- gcb0 14y ago
  i tried and it's a pain to install the plugin. never works on my debian-sid.
  - donniezazen 14y ago
    It works flawlessly on Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, etc. I have tried in all these distros myself.
- donniezazen 14y ago
  I like Google Hangouts better than Skype considering most people have Gmail and they know how to use it. No need to create separate accounts or any other installation hassles specially good for older folks. I wish the plugin came pre-installed with Chrome Browser. And video quality could also use some work.
- duaneb 14y ago
  It doesn't have fullscreen.
JoeAltmaier 14y ago
I use Sococo's Teamspace, which I help write as my job. We're cognizant of cpu usage especially on laptops and pads. We're ok now, and our next release will use substantially less CPU. Our codecs are WebRTC-derived, and its pretty stingy with memory and cpu so that's cool.
- JoeAltmaier 14y ago
  Confused; is it inappropriate to suggest other startup's products here? WebRTC etc are good technology, that's why we picked them up. All the issues mentioned by the poster are important to all of us in this space. Sococo is responsive, constantly doing customer experience surveys and trying to address quality. Do you imagine Sococo is some giant corporation? Its a startup like so many here. I was the 3rd person in the company, the 1st Software Engineer, so I'm pretty proud of the progress we've made in the last couple of years. There are a lot of big players in our market, and we've done a good job of beating them technically even though we're small.
josh2600 14y ago
The one key element of a Skype Killer, which isn't present in WebRTC, is a prescribed infrastructure to support these communications. Skype is made up of users who actually are, usually, unaware that they are also routing calls for other users. Even more precarious (and absent from WebRTC) are the skype SuperNodes, which no one is going to redo for WebRTC. The things which we love about skype, most notably the directory and ease of routing, are currently missing from WebRTC. Someone might come along and make them, but WebRTC is not inherently different from Skype's infrastructure, it's just new. Someone still has to build the supporting services to turn this into a Skype Killer.
- sandfox 14y ago
  Google twelephone
- icambron 14y ago
  It would seem to greatly lower the cost of building a Skype-killer, though, and that's a pretty big deal.
  - josh2600 14y ago
    Sort of. Now you don't need to build client software, but that was never the real prowess or power of Skype, it was always the infrastructure. Think of it this way. Skype has 2 things that WebRTC doesn't: Signaling and a Directory. Without those two components, you just have a phone without a phone number :/. Lower barrier, yes. Easy? No, there are still significant costs.
    - pbhjpbhj 14y ago
      Seems like Facebook is pretty close to solving signalling and a directory - in effect it already has them for their messaging service. If you enable chat on Facebook then people can already find you for chat and know if you're [reporting that you're] available. FB is already in bed with Skype though I think so not sure how that would pan out in practice.
jallmann 14y ago
Not saying Skype is perfect (it isn't), but WebRTC by itself doesn't come close to being a Skype substitute. While stability for particular client-side bits (media, transport, etc) will now now fall on the browser vendor, you're still going to depend on another service for all the niceties (media and signaling relay, contacts, presence, history, etc), and they could screw it up just as badly as Skype, or worse. Skype could just use WebRTC as another transport -- there's no technical reason they can't.
- kyro 14y ago
  What matters most to me is video chatting that doesn't suck. If WebRTC is that and only that, I would be more than willing to use another chat app as a buddy list and for chat history.
- mnutt 14y ago
  You're correct that you'll depend on another service for all the niceties, but I for one am super excited about decoupling all of those services from the connection itself. Hopefully it'll lead to a lot more competition and innovation in the space.
  - nextparadigms 14y ago
    At the very least I hope it forces IM apps like Skype and Facetime to support WebRTC (that is possible for native apps, too, right?) so that in the future we get interoperability between them. Wouldn't it be nice if WebRTC pushed video-calling into becoming like e-mail, and you could take to anyone, regardless of what "video-calling app/service" they are using?
    - jallmann 14y ago
      > Wouldn't it be nice if WebRTC pushed video-calling into becoming like e-mail WebRTC doesn't define a signaling protocol. There are already protocols for that. SIP, XMPP/Jingle, etc. It would be nice if people started using them more. WebRTC only defines an offer/answer API (which is actually a big difference!) So having two different services use WebRTC doesn't mean they'll be interoperable. (Unless the services intentionally make an effort to federate.) Any third-party attempt at interop between incompatible services is going to involve spoofing a connection to each service. While that's not impossible, WebRTC really isn't the interoperability panacea that people seem to think.
unreal37 14y ago
By your own admission, Skype is the best video communication platform that exists but is far from perfect. It's hard to disagree. Why isn't someone creating something better?
- maykelange 14y ago
  How do you compete with free ?
  - drgath 14y ago
    With free.
  - timClicks 14y ago
    With better.
- Steko 14y ago
  Last I checked everyone was trying to create something better. Google, Apple, Facebook, Tencent, carriers, and many startups.
smhinsey 14y ago
I'm not 100%, because I do audio-only rather than video, but I think Trillian will handle that for Skype, and its a little bit more stable. I agree that Skype is one of the worst apps out there.
shmerl 14y ago
Skype has to be killed just because it's a closed non interoperable network. WebRTC can be misused as well if closed non interoperable networks built on it will pop up around like mushrooms. If WebRTC will be used to plug into federated XMPP/Jingle networks - then it'll be good.
mmahemoff 14y ago
Another really important thing Skype can do is terminate calls on regular landlines. That lets Skype plug the gap from old to new, as its network grows. Google has the infrastructure to make it happen via WebRTC, but it would need to be integrated with accounts and payment.
LilValleyBigEgo 14y ago
There will be a day when humans get over grunting and waving their arms to get what they want, but grunting into a computer and waving your arms isn't moving toward that evolutionary step. Voice communication over the Internet and, well, everything else needs to stop and symbolic communication needs to flourish. Today data plans are an add on to voice plans. Tomorrow it will flip.
forrestthewoods 14y ago
I'm the opposite. I don't want to use anything except Skype for voice chat. Nothing comes even remotely close in sound quality. If I had the same cpu/crash issues as you I'd be loudly cursing it's name. Luckily I don't and until something can provide better quality I won't be using it.
- chrisdone 14y ago
  “Nothing comes even remotely close in sound quality.” — Mumble?
  - forrestthewoods 14y ago
    With Skype I can play games with a group and put the mic in always on mode. No feedback, no audio from speakers, and no keyboard clicks. It's pretty damned amazing to be honest. Ventrilo and Mumble do have far superior support for massive number of people in a chat room. If you're participating in large MMO raids or Eve Online type festivities the Skype doesn't have the necessary features. For my ~5 player parties Skype blows everything else out of the water and isn't even close.
    - nextparadigms 14y ago
      WebRTC incorporates the SILK audio codec Skype is using, too, except it can go even higher bitrates. WebRTC should sound at least as good as Skype.
      - ZeroGravitas 14y ago
        Mumble currently uses CELT and Skype currently uses Silk. The two codecs have been merged/improved into Opus, which is one of the mandatory audio codecs for WebRTC. But all three are moving to Opus, so very soon it's not going to be the codec itself that will differentiate audio quality between them.
      - gcr 14y ago
        I don't think it's about compression. I think Skype's invested most of their resource into, eg. noise and echo cancellation, reducing environment noise, working around glitchy / clicky sound capture devices, latency, ...
gcv 14y ago
If both of you have Apple devices, I highly recommend FaceTime. In my experience, it has better video quality than Skype.
sliverstorm 14y ago
The funny thing is I remember Skype being great, back around the release of version 2 or 3. They just started nailing fat on everywhere they could, and haven't taken a moment to look back since.
ngoel36 14y ago
Google+ Hangouts are infinitely better. Here's a writeup I did on the benefits: http://slant.co/topics/what-is-the-best-video-chat-service/opinions/google-hangouts http://slant.co/topics/what-is-the-best-video-chat-service/o...

by kyro 14y ago

lightyrs 14y ago

Have you tried Google Hangouts? I've had some success with that lately over Skype.

dudus 14y ago
I would expect Google Hangouts to use webRTC when available and use the Talk plugin only as a fallback.
neutronicus 14y ago
I love Google Hangouts, and prefer them to Skype, but they bring my laptop to its knees. Multicolored pinwheels everywhere.
irollboozers 14y ago
Meetings.io was our go-to service for a while, it was just so insanely better than Google hangouts and skype. It showed so much promise, until sadly they were acquired and now it sucks.
gcb0 14y ago
i tried and it's a pain to install the plugin. never works on my debian-sid.
- donniezazen 14y ago
  It works flawlessly on Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, etc. I have tried in all these distros myself.
donniezazen 14y ago
I like Google Hangouts better than Skype considering most people have Gmail and they know how to use it. No need to create separate accounts or any other installation hassles specially good for older folks. I wish the plugin came pre-installed with Chrome Browser. And video quality could also use some work.
duaneb 14y ago
It doesn't have fullscreen.

JoeAltmaier 14y ago

I use Sococo's Teamspace, which I help write as my job. We're cognizant of cpu usage especially on laptops and pads. We're ok now, and our next release will use substantially less CPU. Our codecs are WebRTC-derived, and its pretty stingy with memory and cpu so that's cool.

JoeAltmaier 14y ago
Confused; is it inappropriate to suggest other startup's products here? WebRTC etc are good technology, that's why we picked them up. All the issues mentioned by the poster are important to all of us in this space. Sococo is responsive, constantly doing customer experience surveys and trying to address quality. Do you imagine Sococo is some giant corporation? Its a startup like so many here. I was the 3rd person in the company, the 1st Software Engineer, so I'm pretty proud of the progress we've made in the last couple of years. There are a lot of big players in our market, and we've done a good job of beating them technically even though we're small.

josh2600 14y ago

The one key element of a Skype Killer, which isn't present in WebRTC, is a prescribed infrastructure to support these communications. Skype is made up of users who actually are, usually, unaware that they are also routing calls for other users. Even more precarious (and absent from WebRTC) are the skype SuperNodes, which no one is going to redo for WebRTC. The things which we love about skype, most notably the directory and ease of routing, are currently missing from WebRTC. Someone might come along and make them, but WebRTC is not inherently different from Skype's infrastructure, it's just new. Someone still has to build the supporting services to turn this into a Skype Killer.

sandfox 14y ago
Google twelephone
icambron 14y ago
It would seem to greatly lower the cost of building a Skype-killer, though, and that's a pretty big deal.
- josh2600 14y ago
  Sort of. Now you don't need to build client software, but that was never the real prowess or power of Skype, it was always the infrastructure. Think of it this way. Skype has 2 things that WebRTC doesn't: Signaling and a Directory. Without those two components, you just have a phone without a phone number :/. Lower barrier, yes. Easy? No, there are still significant costs.
  - pbhjpbhj 14y ago
    Seems like Facebook is pretty close to solving signalling and a directory - in effect it already has them for their messaging service. If you enable chat on Facebook then people can already find you for chat and know if you're [reporting that you're] available. FB is already in bed with Skype though I think so not sure how that would pan out in practice.

jallmann 14y ago

Not saying Skype is perfect (it isn't), but WebRTC by itself doesn't come close to being a Skype substitute. While stability for particular client-side bits (media, transport, etc) will now now fall on the browser vendor, you're still going to depend on another service for all the niceties (media and signaling relay, contacts, presence, history, etc), and they could screw it up just as badly as Skype, or worse. Skype could just use WebRTC as another transport -- there's no technical reason they can't.

kyro 14y ago
What matters most to me is video chatting that doesn't suck. If WebRTC is that and only that, I would be more than willing to use another chat app as a buddy list and for chat history.
mnutt 14y ago
You're correct that you'll depend on another service for all the niceties, but I for one am super excited about decoupling all of those services from the connection itself. Hopefully it'll lead to a lot more competition and innovation in the space.
- nextparadigms 14y ago
  At the very least I hope it forces IM apps like Skype and Facetime to support WebRTC (that is possible for native apps, too, right?) so that in the future we get interoperability between them. Wouldn't it be nice if WebRTC pushed video-calling into becoming like e-mail, and you could take to anyone, regardless of what "video-calling app/service" they are using?
  - jallmann 14y ago
    > Wouldn't it be nice if WebRTC pushed video-calling into becoming like e-mail WebRTC doesn't define a signaling protocol. There are already protocols for that. SIP, XMPP/Jingle, etc. It would be nice if people started using them more. WebRTC only defines an offer/answer API (which is actually a big difference!) So having two different services use WebRTC doesn't mean they'll be interoperable. (Unless the services intentionally make an effort to federate.) Any third-party attempt at interop between incompatible services is going to involve spoofing a connection to each service. While that's not impossible, WebRTC really isn't the interoperability panacea that people seem to think.

unreal37 14y ago

By your own admission, Skype is the best video communication platform that exists but is far from perfect. It's hard to disagree. Why isn't someone creating something better?

maykelange 14y ago
How do you compete with free ?
- drgath 14y ago
  With free.
- timClicks 14y ago
  With better.
Steko 14y ago
Last I checked everyone was trying to create something better. Google, Apple, Facebook, Tencent, carriers, and many startups.

smhinsey 14y ago

I'm not 100%, because I do audio-only rather than video, but I think Trillian will handle that for Skype, and its a little bit more stable. I agree that Skype is one of the worst apps out there.

shmerl 14y ago

Skype has to be killed just because it's a closed non interoperable network. WebRTC can be misused as well if closed non interoperable networks built on it will pop up around like mushrooms. If WebRTC will be used to plug into federated XMPP/Jingle networks - then it'll be good.

mmahemoff 14y ago

Another really important thing Skype can do is terminate calls on regular landlines. That lets Skype plug the gap from old to new, as its network grows. Google has the infrastructure to make it happen via WebRTC, but it would need to be integrated with accounts and payment.

LilValleyBigEgo 14y ago

There will be a day when humans get over grunting and waving their arms to get what they want, but grunting into a computer and waving your arms isn't moving toward that evolutionary step. Voice communication over the Internet and, well, everything else needs to stop and symbolic communication needs to flourish. Today data plans are an add on to voice plans. Tomorrow it will flip.

forrestthewoods 14y ago

I'm the opposite. I don't want to use anything except Skype for voice chat. Nothing comes even remotely close in sound quality. If I had the same cpu/crash issues as you I'd be loudly cursing it's name. Luckily I don't and until something can provide better quality I won't be using it.

chrisdone 14y ago
“Nothing comes even remotely close in sound quality.” — Mumble?
- forrestthewoods 14y ago
  With Skype I can play games with a group and put the mic in always on mode. No feedback, no audio from speakers, and no keyboard clicks. It's pretty damned amazing to be honest. Ventrilo and Mumble do have far superior support for massive number of people in a chat room. If you're participating in large MMO raids or Eve Online type festivities the Skype doesn't have the necessary features. For my ~5 player parties Skype blows everything else out of the water and isn't even close.
  - nextparadigms 14y ago
    WebRTC incorporates the SILK audio codec Skype is using, too, except it can go even higher bitrates. WebRTC should sound at least as good as Skype.
    - ZeroGravitas 14y ago
      Mumble currently uses CELT and Skype currently uses Silk. The two codecs have been merged/improved into Opus, which is one of the mandatory audio codecs for WebRTC. But all three are moving to Opus, so very soon it's not going to be the codec itself that will differentiate audio quality between them.
    - gcr 14y ago
      I don't think it's about compression. I think Skype's invested most of their resource into, eg. noise and echo cancellation, reducing environment noise, working around glitchy / clicky sound capture devices, latency, ...

gcv 14y ago

If both of you have Apple devices, I highly recommend FaceTime. In my experience, it has better video quality than Skype.

sliverstorm 14y ago

The funny thing is I remember Skype being great, back around the release of version 2 or 3. They just started nailing fat on everywhere they could, and haven't taken a moment to look back since.

ngoel36 14y ago

Google+ Hangouts are infinitely better. Here's a writeup I did on the benefits: http://slant.co/topics/what-is-the-best-video-chat-service/opinions/google-hangouts http://slant.co/topics/what-is-the-best-video-chat-service/o...