Skype alternative
 

Hi all,
Skype has become unuseable and is challenging my sanity. Slow, buggy and crashing..
Anybody have suggestions for a VOIP app please?
Infrequently I need to call a landline and Skype used to work fine, no longer..

Desktop or mobile, and do you already have an account you need it to work with?

Voipfone work alright for me, I mostly use a hardware phone but their soft phone mobile app worked in India. They will steal your money if you leave the account idle (but then so do most PAYG telcos).

Try ZOOM

Whats App

How can I dial a landline number with Zoom or WhatsApp?

Where are you normally based? Wherever that is, I would look at VoIP providers local to you that provide a soft phone client.

A UK-based VoIP provider will expect a UK address for billing and emergency call location (this may not be insurmountable, but was something I came across last year). Of course, once up and running, you can access the service when outside the country, but for setup you probably need to go with a local provider.

SD

Interesting. Will research further. Thanks.

Skype Alternative Needed
 

Can anyone help. I recently discovered that Skype has gone from a pay as you go service, whereby one could periodically top up their account, to a monthly subscription service. For our 1 or 2 week trips to Europe, a monthly subscription isn't necessary as I only used Skype infrequently when overseas to, for instance, make a restaurant reservation or to perhaps let a hotel know that we were arriving late, etc. Back here at home, I found Skype to be very useful if calling to Europe to arrange a trip or organise a hotel reservation - I don't mind being placed on hold for a period of time when the call only costs pennies per minute. Whatsapp popped up immediately as an excellent alternative, but I do try to keep some of the more loathsome techbros like Zuckerberg out of my life and off of my devices. Does anyone have any suggestions for a good alternative to Skype?

Used to use Skype during overseas trips the same as you however after lockdown eased I use WhatsApp if available or I use a esim that covers Europe and charges at local rates. To be honest I find I can get away with not making voice calls everywhere I go....

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/mobiles/what-is-an-esim/

I know a few people who moved off Skype to Viber. I haven't used it, but they liked it.

But can you call a land line from it!?
The only reason I’m using Skype is that I can do so when needed.

Yes. You can use pay as you go credit (just like Skype used to).

https://account.viber.com/en/

I'm indebted to Skype because of the hours I spent talking from Texas to Ireland to a fellow budding author. Many, many hours over a few years. However, I'm getting a lot of crashes while using Skype that need a full restart and reload of Skype. Not quite exclusive to Skype, but almost. It's a @$^@$#%^$ nuisance.

For telephoning, 6 quid a month used to give me the US, where a phone is a phone, on your desk or in yer pocket, but in the UK, Skype would not call a mobile. I now pay a couple of quid to dial land-lines in the UK, though mostly because I need headphones on my PC. Basic cyber-video calling, is, and always was, free.

I don't like What'sApp. I don't know why, but I can't make simple calls with it. If it's on my phone lists, it'll work on my PC, but try as I may, I can't seem to simply dial a new person from my PC. I fear it might be ageing neurons rather than motherboards.

WTF did Microsoft get their hands on Skype ? No problems before they did. I'm not going to "join" their monthly sub. scam. Thanks for the Viber tip, will investigate.

I’ll echo ExSp33’s thanks on he Viber reccomendation!:ok:

I've been using Messenger for a good while now (3-4 years) for 2-3 times weekly 2-hour chats with a friend. It has to be set up at both ends - I use a Windows 10 laptop and she uses an iPad or iPhone, whichever is working. Seems all right and it's free, and I even managed to show some of my films to her over it. She sets it up at the appropriate time and I call her on video, but if I call her at random time, and she is in transit, as long as she has the phone turned on she gets a notification and can answer.

WeChat Out will let you call mobiles and landlines.

We use FaceTime and WhatsApp for the duty calls between foreign lands.

Zoom used to be free (with limitations). That may or may not still be the case.

Because the people that owned it before sold it/out for a lot of money? That's usually the way enterprise works unfortunately. On a much larger scale Thatcher put the UK up for sale, and it is now reaping the "benefits"...............