Comment by 👻 darkghost

Around 2004 to 2005 I had a dedicated Skype phone device (wireless connection to a USB base) to avoid long distance charges calling home. It truly was a different time. I thought it was *so cool* and *so useful* to hold a computer program in my hand like that.

May 06 · 7 months ago

11 Later Comments ↓

Any experience with free alternatives? Tox is good in theory, but has various problems, including poor support for video. Jami (AKA Ring) might be good, but I never managed to compile it.

Tox crashes my router every single time I start it. I don't know what black magic it is using but I've not had this problem before.

I never liked skype, I was a msn/teamspeak person

i miss skype, i used to use it all the time

@darkghost Yeah, it's a known problem with no known solution... iirc the point is that its hole-punching technique involves sending many packets on various udp ports, and stupidly written NAT routers get overwhelmed.

@mbays - jitsi has worked well for me. You can even run your own server if you've got a VPS and FQDN. I liked it because it was still easy for my non-techie dad to download and use the app. vid/audio quality was as good as my VPS bandwidth.

@Half_Elf_Monk yeah, jitsi is fine, though rather heavy on the server; I recommend https://galene.org/ which is a much lighter implementation of the same idea.

So many people saying this, having not used it in YEARS...

This is extremely true. I last placed a Skype call sometime around... 2008?

even so, it still sucks to see something so longstanding just killed like that

Totally agree

Original Post

skype — i miss skype rip skype 2003-2025 :(