Sick of Skype? Attempt these nine alternatives
Apple’s reaction to talk is Messages, the upgrade from the fairly worthless iChat app. Presently in beta, Messages has much to prove. Commencing with OS X Mountain Lion preview, Messages features text, voice, movie calls and screen sharing. Predictably, Messages offers cross-platform compatibility with iMessage, the free iPhone talk service. Messages is free for all Mac OS X Mountain Lion users.
For a pretty decent practice, invest in Oovoo, a multi-platform application with free movie calls, file sharing and instant messaging. Users can pay a little extra and build up access to movie conferencing, land line calls, and movie call recording. Oovoo is a gem for business users looking for a stable movie conferencing app and with over 35-million users, people seem to place their faith in Oovoo.
Fring is an excellent talk and free messaging app, which edges out the competition with its stable and clear voice calls. It works over mostly any prompt connection (with the exception of EDGE), does group movie talk, permits free Fring-to-Fring calls and offers a texting alternative with its talk feature.
Since 1997, AOL has tantalized decent Skype-like apps with its 90s style trappings. But the latest version of AOL IM seems to be the most hated of them all and includes various software irritations. AIM is social networking: idiot edition with elements of BBM and Foursquare shoehorned into what users are calling an “Epic Fail” on AOL’s part. Regardless, it’s an option for the AOL faithful.
Five. Google Talk (Practically every platform ever invented)
That’s more like it. Google Talk is a excellent VoIP app, very user-friendly and above all, it’s clean. Gtalk (as the faithful call it) takes a Zen-like treatment to talk, with phone calls being worked in as naturally as possible. Google also integrates Gtalk into Gmail. It’s good, but lacks the customisation apps of Skype.
Free movie, voice and text talk are some of the delicious morsels suggested by Yahoo! Messenger. Yahoo! also supplies “Phone Out” for budget international calling. Added bonus: Windows Live ID’s can be added to Yahoo! Messenger, which saves you having to download a separate app.
Mumble’s the odd one in the box. As a voice talk service for gamers, it excels. As an out-of-the-box Skype replacement, maybe not. Mumble uses a native voice coded, called Speex which reduces background noise and produces automatic build up control (the volume raises or lowers automatically). What makes Mumble so unique tho’ is that it can be shoehorned into almost any environment, care of prefabricated scripting languages. Low-latency is a must with Mumble, so it scarcely makes an influence on bandwidth speeds.
Pidgin is the greasy eel of the IM world. AIM, Yahoo!, IRC, Google Talk, Microsoft Live and Mxit are just one of many IM’s which can run from the all-encompassing Pidgin platform. Pidgin is the IM of choice for developers, as many of its updates come from users of the multi-faceted platform.
Admittedly, we’re not the fattest Facetime fan but millions use it, so let’s just advocate the sucker for the hell of it. Facetime is the video-calling feature built into Mac’s, and certain capable iDevices such as the iPad and iPhone 4S. From what we’ve seen, it’s functions pretty slickly but the downside is that it won’t work over a 3G connection. Yip, Facetime is a Wi-Fi only service. Outside of this it works well, and when it does the movie is sleek and hassle-free.
Sick of Skype? Attempt these nine alternatives
Sick of Skype? Attempt these nine alternatives
Apple’s reaction to talk is Messages, the upgrade from the fairly futile iChat app. Presently in beta, Messages has much to prove. Commencing with OS X Mountain Lion preview, Messages features text, voice, movie calls and screen sharing. Predictably, Messages offers cross-platform compatibility with iMessage, the free iPhone talk service. Messages is free for all Mac OS X Mountain Lion users.
For a pretty decent practice, invest in Oovoo, a multi-platform application with free movie calls, file sharing and instant messaging. Users can pay a little extra and build up access to movie conferencing, land line calls, and movie call recording. Oovoo is a gem for business users looking for a stable movie conferencing app and with over 35-million users, people seem to place their faith in Oovoo.
Fring is an excellent talk and free messaging app, which edges out the competition with its stable and clear voice calls. It works over mostly any quick connection (with the exception of EDGE), does group movie talk, permits free Fring-to-Fring calls and offers a texting alternative with its talk feature.
Since 1997, AOL has tormented decent Skype-like apps with its 90s style trappings. But the latest version of AOL IM seems to be the most hated of them all and includes various software irritations. AIM is social networking: idiot edition with elements of BBM and Foursquare shoehorned into what users are calling an “Epic Fail” on AOL’s part. Regardless, it’s an option for the AOL faithful.
Five. Google Talk (Practically every platform ever invented)
That’s more like it. Google Talk is a superb VoIP app, very user-friendly and above all, it’s clean. Gtalk (as the faithful call it) takes a Zen-like treatment to talk, with phone calls being worked in as naturally as possible. Google also integrates Gtalk into Gmail. It’s good, but lacks the customisation apps of Skype.
Free movie, voice and text talk are some of the delicious morsels suggested by Yahoo! Messenger. Yahoo! also supplies “Phone Out” for budget international calling. Added bonus: Windows Live ID’s can be added to Yahoo! Messenger, which saves you having to download a separate app.
Mumble’s the odd one in the box. As a voice talk service for gamers, it excels. As an out-of-the-box Skype replacement, maybe not. Mumble uses a native voice coded, called Speex which reduces background noise and produces automatic build up control (the volume raises or lowers automatically). What makes Mumble so unique however is that it can be shoehorned into almost any environment, care of prefabricated scripting languages. Low-latency is a must with Mumble, so it slightly makes an influence on bandwidth speeds.
Pidgin is the slimy eel of the IM world. AIM, Yahoo!, IRC, Google Talk, Microsoft Live and Mxit are just one of many IM’s which can run from the all-encompassing Pidgin platform. Pidgin is the IM of choice for developers, as many of its updates come from users of the multi-faceted platform.
Admittedly, we’re not the largest Facetime fan but millions use it, so let’s just advocate the sucker for the hell of it. Facetime is the video-calling feature built into Mac’s, and certain capable iDevices such as the iPad and iPhone 4S. From what we’ve seen, it’s functions pretty slickly but the downside is that it won’t work over a 3G connection. Yip, Facetime is a Wi-Fi only service. Outside of this it works well, and when it does the movie is sleek and hassle-free.
Sick of Skype? Attempt these nine alternatives
Sick of Skype? Attempt these nine alternatives
Apple’s reaction to talk is Messages, the upgrade from the fairly worthless iChat app. Presently in beta, Messages has much to prove. Beginning with OS X Mountain Lion preview, Messages features text, voice, movie calls and screen sharing. Predictably, Messages offers cross-platform compatibility with iMessage, the free iPhone talk service. Messages is free for all Mac OS X Mountain Lion users.
For a pretty decent practice, invest in Oovoo, a multi-platform application with free movie calls, file sharing and instant messaging. Users can pay a little extra and build up access to movie conferencing, land line calls, and movie call recording. Oovoo is a gem for business users looking for a stable movie conferencing app and with over 35-million users, people seem to place their faith in Oovoo.
Fring is an excellent talk and free messaging app, which edges out the competition with its stable and clear voice calls. It works over mostly any swift connection (with the exception of EDGE), does group movie talk, permits free Fring-to-Fring calls and offers a texting alternative with its talk feature.
Since 1997, AOL has tormented decent Skype-like apps with its 90s style trappings. But the latest version of AOL IM seems to be the most hated of them all and includes various software irritations. AIM is social networking: idiot edition with elements of BBM and Foursquare shoehorned into what users are calling an “Epic Fail” on AOL’s part. Regardless, it’s an option for the AOL faithful.
Five. Google Talk (Practically every platform ever invented)
That’s more like it. Google Talk is a fine VoIP app, very user-friendly and above all, it’s clean. Gtalk (as the faithful call it) takes a Zen-like treatment to talk, with phone calls being worked in as naturally as possible. Google also integrates Gtalk into Gmail. It’s excellent, but lacks the customisation apps of Skype.
Free movie, voice and text talk are some of the delicious morsels suggested by Yahoo! Messenger. Yahoo! also supplies “Phone Out” for budget international calling. Added bonus: Windows Live ID’s can be added to Yahoo! Messenger, which saves you having to download a separate app.
Mumble’s the odd one in the box. As a voice talk service for gamers, it excels. As an out-of-the-box Skype replacement, maybe not. Mumble uses a native voice coded, called Speex which reduces background noise and supplies automatic build up control (the volume raises or lowers automatically). What makes Mumble so unique however is that it can be shoehorned into almost any environment, care of prefabricated scripting languages. Low-latency is a must with Mumble, so it hardly makes an influence on bandwidth speeds.
Pidgin is the lubricious eel of the IM world. AIM, Yahoo!, IRC, Google Talk, Microsoft Live and Mxit are just one of many IM’s which can run from the all-encompassing Pidgin platform. Pidgin is the IM of choice for developers, as many of its updates come from users of the multi-faceted platform.
Admittedly, we’re not the fattest Facetime fan but millions use it, so let’s just advocate the sucker for the hell of it. Facetime is the video-calling feature built into Mac’s, and certain capable iDevices such as the iPad and iPhone 4S. From what we’ve seen, it’s functions pretty sleekly but the downside is that it won’t work over a 3G connection. Yip, Facetime is a Wi-Fi only service. Outside of this it works well, and when it does the movie is sleek and hassle-free.