Skype Is Finally Shutting Down on May 5

[shapesinaframe]

Zoom Phone seems to be the most reliable alternative to Skype Phone https://zoom.us/pricing/zoom-phone

Teams Phone is an option but only works with work/school accounts https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-teams/microsoft-teams-phone

 

[svish]

Disappointing to hear this. Had used Skype a lot few years ago. Not so sure whether I will be switching to Teams. Happy with FaceTime and iMessage now.

 

[Reason077]

Try Yolla, works great

Thanks. Does caller ID work? ie: with Skype, it will send your normal phone number as the caller ID. So if someone wants to return your call they will have your correct number.

 

[Reason077]

Zoom Phone seems to be the most reliable alternative to Skype Phone https://zoom.us/pricing/zoom-phone

Much more expensive, though? Skype has cheap per-minute rates, you don't have to pay for the monthly subscription.

 

[shapesinaframe]

Much more expensive, though? Skype has cheap per-minute rates, you don't have to pay for the monthly subscription.

Oh yeah. Nowhere near as good of a deal as Skype Phone was 😓

 

[danny842003]

Great memories using Skype me and my now wife met in a hostel in Singapore and were essentially long distance for 3 years.
Almost ten years married now since I made the move down under but Skype is what kept us connected through those early years.
It’s pretty unbelievable that it’s been managed to its death so incompetently.

 

[wyrdness]

Never had issues with teams and use if endlessly

On a Teams call, which key on the keyboard do you press to mute your microphone?

 

[Jeromevilaroel]

ahh i use it on daily basis

 

[MacHeritage]

Skype works internationally when nothing else will and is sometimes the only option, so this shut down is surprising to me. It even works on older hardware and software. Does it really take that many resources for Microsoft to keep it going for 10s of millions of users? How many companies wish they had that many users!

But then, this is Microsoft.

Sad to see it go, even though Microsoft backdoored the Skype servers to the NSA once they took it over. It was a very much needed calling app that I had used a lot more then any other calling app/service until Zoom, even though I knew it had no real privacy.

So long Skype.

 

[iPhoneFan5349]

Been using it for 5 years, never had an issue. What makes it the worst designed app ever?

You need take a course to know how to use it

 

[Rockoar]

Quite sad to see it go but honestly I’m not surprised. They never seemed to know what to do with it and what was good about it was mostly there before they acquired it.

I used it a lot during the pandemic but also before, like many others here, to make international calls at a cheap(-er) rate.

I’ll always remember fondly that one time I went to a fast food place to use their Wi-Fi to connect my 2nd gen iPod touch to the internet and call my grandma overseas through Skype. Quite a convoluted way to do so, but I didn’t have a smartphone nor a reliable connection at home so…

 

[hagar]

Microsoft, where good apps go to die. Thinking of you, Wunderlist. (The new Superlist by its original creator looks promising though)

 

[Will Co]

I’ve been using Skype all day during work 5 days a week for the last 17 years, this kinda sucks lol. Only ever for text based chat, we use it within the company as we are all very spread out and a lot of us remote

Exactly the same use case. We mostly text chat but occasionally need to hold a voice or even video call and screen share. For that Skype is simple and easy to use and works well. We’ll miss it.

 

[wib]

(Answering my own question).

A quick reddit search yields Viber Out an alternative to Skype for making international calls to landlines/mobiles (rates). You buy pay as you go credits or monthly subscriptions. Has anybody tried Viber Out ?

I use Viber to call international numbers. It's not too bad and the rates are reasonable(ish) depending on where you're calling. Calling Mobile numbers costs a lot, but landlines are relatively cheap.

 

[cgs1xx]

It’s a shame… I don’t know how anyone in their right mind would prefer teams over skype 🤷🏻‍♂️
Skype has always been the go-to for friends/family who don’t have iPhones.
I suppose it will now have to be Messenger, that’s the other ubiquitous platform I think.

 

[Skyscraperfan]

That is shocking. I don't know a real alternative that allows me to contact a land line.

 

[JohannesO]

I used Skype Out all the time when traveling abroad to reach people at home in companies on landlines.
Skype showed my mobile number so people could see it’s me.

What does that job for me in the future?

(Still have some credits left there 😝)

 

[Evil Lair]

It is a shame and stupid on Microsoft's account to see this go, not sure what alternative I'll switch to for remote family video chat. Facetime seems obvious, but we left that years ago as the audio level is so ridiculously low. We both have to crank the audio up almost to max on either end to make out what anyone is saying. On my old Macbook Air I had to max the audio and then put my ear right up to the keyboard to hear anything at all. On iOS it's fine but not macOS. Already have Teams installed for business so that's a no-go, not risking crossing conversations and I'm not sure it even supports multiple accounts.

 

[ppenn]

Teams has since grown to 320 million monthly users...

Thats because because many people are forced to have it open while at work. Nobody is causually using teams at home to chat with friends

 

[ppenn]

I used Skype Out all the time when traveling abroad to reach people at home in companies on landlines.
Skype showed my mobile number so people could see it’s me.

What does that job for me in the future?

(Still have some credits left there 😝)

Sounds like maybe google voice is an option for you?

 

[Kulfon]

On a Teams call, which key on the keyboard do you press to mute your microphone?

No idea. But I am able to do it

 

[dannys1]

Zoom was pretty easy to use for me, and I think that contributed a lot to why it took off. A lot of people who had to migrate to online meetings during the pandemic were not very tech-savvy at all, and when these video conferencing apps all sport the same basic functionality, the one with which gets the job done easier gets everyone's vote.

My organisation just recently migrated from zoom to Teams, and I can only say that I am not a fan of the latter. It's oddly missing a few features we have come to rely on, such as breakout rooms, I am stuck to using it on my work-issued laptop and only when connected to my school network (I could previously run Zoom using my work account on my Mac over wifi, which was key because VPN was slower over my home network), and for some funny reason, the developers chose to put the "share" and "leave" buttons next to each other (I have had colleagues who accidentally clicked on the wrong one). Plus there's no full-screen option when you are beaming your screen to a room of students/

I guess apps like Teams and Skype are representative of Microsoft's overall culture. Microsoft has all the vision they need, they just can't execute, or when they do, it's too early or too late and they show up at the party like a half inflated balloon, or cripple the product in a small but meaningful way.

I mean, you can look back at some of the promotional videos and stuff they released 25 years ago about connected homes, media center PCs, all that ****, and it all mostly came true. They saw it. They knew it was coming. And they blew it.

I only used Zoom a couple of times but I thought it was a terrible UX, mainly the part where it would tell you you only had X amount of time left on a call randomly.

 

[dannys1]

Zoom was free to install and didn’t charge anything at all.

So was Skype - in fact Skype was more free because Zoom kept trying to get you to upgrade to a paid plan by cutting you off randomly and warning you your call had 15 mins left, which was an awful experience. Skype never did that.

 

[justmadeupname]

Zoom Phone seems to be the most reliable alternative to Skype Phone https://zoom.us/pricing/zoom-phone

Teams Phone is an option but only works with work/school accounts https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-teams/microsoft-teams-phone

Zoom Phone is per month subscription so not good if you make the occasional international calls landline/mobiles like I did with Skype Out using prepaid credits. I'm going to look into Viber Out which had a credit and monthly subscription system.

 

[UliBaer]

Sad.

Been using Skype since 2008 regularly, but admitted, lesser and lesser in last times. Last time I used it intensely was during the pandemic. We have regular meetings with friends and colleagues every Thursday evening with eating and drinking and exchanging latest news and discussing important things. This was not allowed during that time and since drinking alone is boring, we made that meetings via Skype, cause it was THE solution, everyone had on his/her computers already installed on all available platforms. I have Skype on all my computers and phones and it will be missed by me...