Skype versus Yahoo

With the influx of complaints regarding Skype’s fall from grace, Danny Wirken measures up the top competitor and internet giant Yahoo!’s news internet telephony service. Cheaper, faster, better quality, better customer service and a brand you can trust. These are the things Yahoo! want you take away from any of their promotional material for the new Yahoo! voice VoIP service. The weird and wonderful continues to...

Make Free Skype Calls With Regular Phone

A gadget called the Skype USB to RJ11 Adaptor lets you make and receive free Internet VoIP calls using your regular home phone — and your cell phone. The device plugs into your PC’s USB port, and has a place to plug in your home phone. Once you set it up, you can use your home phone to make free calls to anywhere in the world. (Note that this is not a review — all claims are made by the company and have not...

eBay, Skype, Others Sued by File-Sharing Co

Ebay, the online auction powerhouse, and its subsidiary Skype were among 22 firms sued by the company that produces the software that drives popular file-sharing network Morpheus, in relation to the voice-over-IP (VoIP) technology they use to provide phone calls over the Web, the Associated Press reports via The Washington Post. StreamCast Networks fingered the founders of Kazaa, another file-sharing service, as...

Skype: Is It Good For Business?

Skype and Skype watchers have been saying for some time now that a surprising proportion of the low-or-no-cost VoIP service’s customers are using it for business. This is probably truer in Europe and the Far East where phone companies often charge for local calls, and long distance typically costs more than it does in North America. But the idea of using Skype for business is evidently starting to catch on here as...

Skype bug lets ‘buddies’ swipe Files

Skype has warned of a flaw in its popular VoIP client software that creates a means for hackers to swipe files from their “buddies”. The flaw can be exploited via a malicious constructed Skype URL which initiates the transfer of a single named file to another Skype user. The security bug stems from an error within the parsing of the parameters passed by the URL handler. This flaw creates a means for hackers to...

Skype’s plummet – customer service freefall

With the recent takeover of Skype by Ebay, Danny Wirken asks if Skype has forgotten to pack it’s parachute. With the internet booming in sales of products such as the Skype phone or free Skype download, the company is enjoying more publicity than ever before. Since inception in 2003, Skype now claims well over 55 million registered customers thanks to the way it allows users to call other users for free. It has...

A victim of their own success Skype service falls behind

With Skype refusing to answer emails promptly or even to update their ad-hoc customer service style, Danny Wirken ponders the paperless world of Skype. Ah, Skype. Time was, my father would often say, that one could correct most problems if you found the right paperwork. While I don’t share my father’s passion for record keeping (I enjoy paying my bills online and doing my bit for the environment) I must agree...

A Closer look at Skype’s Competitors

With the once loyal fans of Skype and SkypeOut now looking for a new company to service their internet telephony needs, Danny Wirken discovers some interesting truths behind many of the main competitors. At first glance there are seemingly hundreds of them. Thanks to the rapid and surprising success of Skype and SkypeOut many other companies have begun to offer internet telephony and VoIP services to the same market...

Skype targets mainstream consumers

Skype, the popular VoIP service that offers free computer to computer calling over the internet is going to make a play for the mainstream IP telephony market. The company recently announced a number of new products at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. Skype’s move is quite expected. Being one of the most prominent services on the internet that offers VoIP, it has no choice but to expand to...

Skype: a threat to national security?

Voice-over-Internet Protocol provider Skype assures its users that for sure, Skype-to-Skype calls, meaning those made directly from one user’s PC to another’s PC, are secured using a 256-bit encryption algorithm. This is even more secure than the 128-bit keys used to encrypt transmission of credit card numbers over the Internet. However, one issue is raised with this level of calling security offered by Skype....