Why is Skype forcing a software upgrade on all of us?

Yeh the Skype upgrade caused major problems for myself as all my linux machines were running ALSA only the 4.3 upgrade forces you to install PA which is just shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii*t and thats being polite about it spent hours just trying to get some semblance of crackle free audio.

Had to chuck out one of my sound cards as it was just no-go on PA (Turtle Beach Santa Cruz), works fine on ALSA massive screeching sound on PA, its a known bug which no one is fixing due to its age. Out of my 3 linux machines I only have one that PA works on reliably that's not a great success rate.

Anyways im hunting around for a decent skype alternative tried Jitsi but wasnt impressed with its handling of audio settings if it implemented automatic mixer level handling like skype then I might consider it but having to tailor everything manually was a pain.

Tried going back to 4.2 only to find it wouldn't connect and all this just to keep the NSA happy.

I am keeping my eye on Tox https://tox.im/ which looks interesting.

I dumped Skype when I found out about the whole turning your machine into a super-node thing... That was before MS bought 'em. MS buying them just made me more glad I dumped them. Google Hangouts uses less hardware resources,... And, if I'm going to get spied on anyway (Hi! NSA!!!),... I might as well use that fact to get served up with ads I prefer, as opposed to just spammed to death with junk ads.

> only the 4.3 upgrade forces you to install PA

Well, that explains why 4.3 can't see any of my audio devices on my Slackware box here at the house. Oh well, time to removepkg skype*. It was a useful program at one time. But knowing Microsoft, it was olny a matter of time till they broke it.

Makes you wonder how much faster and more efficient things would run without the NSA and MS surveillance requirements.

As for myself, I've never used Skype and never will. But then, I'm still using an 8-year old C2D Gateway laptop as my primary, and it does NOT have a built-in webcam.

Yep, I've had problem with audio since installing PA. Skype 4.2 allowed me to pick the audio device (USB headset), and so on. Now, no such thing, and the USB headset just doesn't work.

So Skype removed itself, in my opinion.

I hate to be contrary, but on my PulseAudio-running Fedora system, the PulseAudio-aware 4.3 solved all of the audio issues I had with Skype before now.

> I hate to be contrary

(shouting in the voice of Gerard Butler)

THIS IS THE INTERNET!

/me throws Bob_Robertson into /dev/null

(crawling out of well)

As an aside, I recently heard of "pavucontrol", which might allow me to overcome the agonies of using Pulse Audio. I'll try to remember to post if/when I try it.

Oh, and thanks to whoever fixed the title I forgot to enter. :)

Quoting:As an aside, I recently heard of "pavucontrol", which might allow me to overcome the agonies of using Pulse Audio. I'll try to remember to post if/when I try it.

You absolutely need pavucontrol, especially in Xfce (and Xfce distros other than Xubuntu, which deals with PulseAudio volume better than any other Xfce-running system, from what I can see).

I'm not sure how well GNOME 3 handles PulseAudio, but I hope it's better than Xfce, where pavucontrol is the only thing standing between civilization and barbarism.

> As an aside, I recently heard of "pavucontrol", which might allow me to overcome the agonies of using Pulse Audio.

Pulse Audio is available for Slackware via Slackbuilds.org, but it's not part of the standard install. And I'm not willing to install it just to use Skype. I can live without it.

It's a shame that Microsoft has sold its users out to the NSA. I for one will not use Skype going forward. I'll keep my eyes open for an end-to-end-secure implementation like the original Skype was designed to be.

Quoting:It's a shame that Microsoft has sold its users out to the NSA.

But not a surprise.

Quoting: It's a shame that Microsoft has sold its users out to the NSA.

Quoting: But not a surprise.

I guess it's past time for upgrading my tinfoil cap to proper copper-mesh lining in all my head-wear... ;-)

Though at this point, I should at least be able to find suitable pre-made haberdashery, rather than my own ham-fisted DIY :-P

Now you're making me think of the new Weird Al Yankovic song, "Foil." :-)

http://www.twpinc.com/

"We manufacture, distribute, and fabricate wire mesh, hardware cloth, stainless steel wire mesh screen discs, wire cloth, stainless steel wire mesh, welded wire meshes, RFI shielding. Choose from a wide variety of thin micronic materials to extra heavy welded stainless and galvanized steel meshes, specialty insect screens, screen wire, welded wire mesh fabric, wire screen and screen mesh, bronze screen, brass mesh, bronze mesh, galvanized plain steel mesh, micronic mesh, sintered wire mesh laminates, diffusion bonded wire meshes, monel and inconel alloys wire mesh filter discs and slitting services. Copper wire mesh and screen is offered up to 72 inches wide for radio wave shielding."

NSA access for Skype been there a long time away. When they arrested Kim Dotcom they had his entire Skype conversation history.

I don't even know why people use Skype when there are so much arguably better alternatives now.

> NSA access for Skype been there a long time away

Yes, but it wasn't built-in. They had to work at it.

They had to strong-arm an American company into buying Skype, so the code could be re-written to use only NSA-approved servers. No more of this anarchy of "ad-hoc super-nodes".