What's missing from skype that isnt provided by AIM or GTalk? Is it the ability ...

jwatzman · on March 30, 2011

I have been unable to find an alternative that allows me, a Mac user, to do a video chat with my girlfriend, a Windows user, with no fuss when both of us are behind separate NATs.

jswanson · on March 31, 2011

Have you tried gtalk on Chrome?

Seems to work everywhere that has an OS Recognized camera and mic. I've talked with people on linux, and windows, from my OS 10.6 machine.

emehrkay · on March 30, 2011

Not even AIM? I find that hard to believe

lemming · on March 30, 2011

It's absolutely true. I haven't used AIM much but a while ago I was trying to find an easy way to talk to my parents. When you want a hassle free experience, Skype so far is the only option.

lancewiggs · on March 30, 2011

It's absolutely true. I haven't used AIM much but a while ago I was trying to find an easy way to talk to my parents. When you want a hassle free experience, Skype WAS the only option.

It's now no longer hassle free. Like the OP I find the new Skype wretched, now use it less and would jump at helping my contacts and I switch.

Question: How many Mac users are in the internal Skype testing program? I'm guessing not many

emehrkay · on March 30, 2011

I find it crazy that chatroulette does the cross-platform thing pretty well while using flash, but these IM clients are dedicated apps that are closer to the os and still cannot make it happen.

whatusername · on March 31, 2011

What is this AIM thing you mention?

// The rest of the world never really used AIM. Certainly here in Australia it was ICQ and then MSN (and now facebook) for chat.

Skype has always been the VOIP / Video Chat service of choice..

GeneralMaximus · on March 30, 2011

- Group chats. - Group calls, group video calls. - Only works on Windows. All other platforms require a weird plugin thing that's shit.

Angostura · on March 31, 2011

Cross-platorm decent quality video conferencing with ease of set-up.

kahawe · on March 30, 2011

What's missing is all the people and business partners who are already using skype right now and who have not switched to an alternative and probably don't plan to. Users seem to be very accepting of all sorts of nonsense in software if "everybody else" is still using it and they can contact their loved ones through it. (Just like why is "everyone" using facebook and twitter instead of competitor x and y?)

And I am not sure you are in a position to tell a client "sorry, we would rather use GTalk or Jabber!".