From Skype to LaLa Land.

[Captor]

6 hours ago, maxx58 said:

I use Viber to call my friends & family in the USA, $1.99/mo.

I use WhatsApp to call friends in other countries.

Can call +1 800 numbers using Viber, which is important to me. 

Whatsapp chares your personal information with Meta. So that is not an option for me.

[Mario Cosmopolite]

1 hour ago, KhunHeineken said:

The same everyone else wants, the closest thing to Skype, and that's Viber. 

 

Can you name another product that is as close to Skype as Viber is? 

 

1 hour ago, KhunHeineken said:

The same everyone else wants, the closest thing to Skype, and that's Viber. 

 

Can you name another product that is as close to Skype as Viber is? 

Viber is a monthly subscription so for people like me making only a few landline calls a quarter it works out quite expensive; Skype for many years was a simple top-up when empty subscription which was for me much cheaper. Granted they changed to monthly subscription in recent months but my old credit lasted just long enough.

[marcho]

17 hours ago, KhunHeineken said:

Yes, but Yolla do not offer an unlimited paid call subscription. 

Who cares, only need to ring my bank now and then.

[Lung Mark]

18 hours ago, KhunHeineken said:

Can you do free voice / video calls? 

No video calls. Free calls within US and Canada (maybe more if your # is in another country). Use Facebook Messenger for free calls and video calls. The other party has to be on your friend list.

[superal]

On 4/23/2025 at 5:42 AM, impulse said:

 

I migrated to Teams.  They ported over my contacts and I now have 4 of the 200+ Skype contacts.  That's all that have joined Teams.  3 of them are vendors I haven't used in a decade.  No phone calls enabled. 

 

I'll let it sit on my computer for a few weeks, then wipe it if it gets no better.

 

I also migrated to Teams which has opened but it does not show my transferred funds . Contacted Microsoft chat page that said 5 minutes wait but 35 minutes later no reply . Not looking great .

Surasak recommended Mytello which I have joined , easy to do . 1.5 baht a minute to UK mobiles is good .

[KhunHeineken]

On 4/23/2025 at 9:39 AM, Captor said:

But they want to have access to all your contacts in your contactlists. If you not accept that you can not create a Viber account.

 

Aren't you going to add all your contacts from your contact list to Viber so you can call them anyway? 

 

If that's an issue, add them, then delete them. 

 

Weren't all your contacts in Skype? 

[KhunHeineken]

On 4/23/2025 at 9:42 AM, Captor said:

Whatsapp chares your personal information with Meta. So that is not an option for me.

If you have an Android phone, Google knows everything anyway. 

[KhunHeineken]

On 4/23/2025 at 10:24 AM, Mario Cosmopolite said:

Viber is a monthly subscription so for people like me making only a few landline calls a quarter it works out quite expensive;

Wrong. 

 

Viber also offers credit / minutes.  I don't know what country you are from, so I just chose USA. 

 

$4.99USD for 239 minutes, but if you call $1.99USD a month for unlimited minutes to the USA, that's $23.88USD a year to call as many times as you want, and talk as long as you want, expensive, well, what can I say? 

 

https://account.viber.com/en/call-usa

 

On 4/23/2025 at 10:24 AM, Mario Cosmopolite said:

Skype for many years was a simple top-up when empty subscription which was for me much cheaper. Granted they changed to monthly subscription in recent months but my old credit lasted just long enough.

Viber offers the same.  Check out the above link. 

[KhunHeineken]

On 4/24/2025 at 1:12 AM, marcho said:

Who cares, only need to ring my bank now and then.

Some members are more frequent users, and some are heavy users.  I am posting "in general" not about your specific circumstances, because like you said, "who cares" about your specific circumstances. 

[KhunHeineken]

On 4/24/2025 at 2:22 AM, Lung Mark said:

No video calls.

So not a complete Skype alternative then. 

 

On 4/24/2025 at 2:22 AM, Lung Mark said:

Free calls within US and Canada

What's the benefit of that when living in Thailand?  (I note you said "within" and not "to")

 

On 4/24/2025 at 2:22 AM, Lung Mark said:

Use Facebook Messenger for free calls and video calls. The other party has to be on your friend list.

Many don't use Facebook due to privacy reasons. 

[KhunHeineken]

27 minutes ago, superal said:

I also migrated to Teams which has opened but it does not show my transferred funds . Contacted Microsoft chat page that said 5 minutes wait but 35 minutes later no reply . Not looking great .

It appears they have announced the shut down date before they have prepared for the shut down.  

 

I'll be using the web portal.  I will not be using Teams. 

[KhunHeineken]

On 4/23/2025 at 9:16 AM, impulse said:

Honest questions to Viber, MyTello and Yolla users...  Can you sign up from Thailand?  If so, I'll try them on my next monthly visit.

Yes.

 

On 4/23/2025 at 9:16 AM, impulse said:

Also, are they phone apps, or can they be used on a Windows computer? 

Can be used on Window PC and on Android a Apple. 

 

On 4/23/2025 at 9:16 AM, impulse said:

And can you get a phone number from your home country?  (And, creamy dream here...  Can you have them use your back home cell number as your caller ID like Skype?)

I believe Viber did offer this, but to my knowledge, they no longer offer it.  However, with Skype shutting down, I suspect many of these Skype alternatives will offer all the features that Skype offered.  I would not be surprised to see Viber offer it again. 

 

On 4/23/2025 at 9:16 AM, impulse said:

I'm asking because I'm not getting much luv or info from China here.  (And my antivirus is flagging some of them)

What VPN are you using? 

[impulse]

6 minutes ago, KhunHeineken said:

What VPN are you using? 

 

I was using ExpressVPN quite successfully for years pre-Covid.  Post Covid, I fired up the VPN and the next day we got a phone call from our ISP's security team telling us they detected a VPN at our IP address and that needed to stop.  So I stopped.

 

Good info, BTW.  Thanks for that.  I'll sign up on my next monthly BKK trip.

 

Edit:  Someone in a less precarious visa situation may have bigger balls than I do.  But I'm here to help care for a GF with cancer so I can't risk the trouble on a tourism visa.  They've been really good about letting me come and go so I won't abuse that.

 

 

 

[KhunHeineken]

16 minutes ago, impulse said:

 

I was using ExpressVPN quite successfully for years pre-Covid.  Post Covid, I fired up the VPN and the next day we got a phone call from our ISP's security team telling us they detected a VPN at our IP address and that needed to stop.  So I stopped.

 

Good info, BTW.  Thanks for that.  I'll sign up on my next monthly BKK trip.

 

Edit:  Someone in a less precarious visa situation may have bigger balls than I do.  But I'm here to help care for a GF with cancer so I can't risk the trouble on a tourism visa.  They've been really good about letting me come and go so I won't abuse that.

 

 

 

Express VPN.  Ran by the CIA, and in bed with the UAE government. 

 

Plenty on the net about it.  Here's a couple of articles. 

 

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/expressvpn-cio-among-three-facing-1-6-million-doj-fine-project-raven/

 

https://cybernews.com/news/expressvpn-cio-daniel-gericke-fined-335-000-for-cyber-espionage/

 

 

 

[impulse]

9 minutes ago, KhunHeineken said:

Express VPN.  Ran by the CIA, and in bed with the UAE government. 

 

That may be true, and good information.  But they were always the fastest with patches for the anti-VPN moves which are a regular thing.

 

And I have nothing to hide from anyone.   As if the CIA doesn't already have access to everything I do online.  I just assume they do (VPN or no) and act accordingly.

 

[KhunHeineken]

2 hours ago, impulse said:

 

That may be true, and good information.  But they were always the fastest with patches for the anti-VPN moves which are a regular thing.

 

And I have nothing to hide from anyone.   As if the CIA doesn't already have access to everything I do online.  I just assume they do (VPN or no) and act accordingly.

 

You are in China, one of the most heavily censored and surveilled countries in the world.  Something, or nothing to hide, privacy is something you can't put a price on in such countries, speed or no speed, but that's just my opinion. 

[Captor]

9 hours ago, KhunHeineken said:

Aren't you going to add all your contacts from your contact list to Viber so you can call them anyway? 

 

If that's an issue, add them, then delete them. 

 

Weren't all your contacts in Skype? 

No, I had only the contacts I used to chat with in Skype.

[Captor]

10 hours ago, Captor said:

No, I had only the contacts I used to chat with in Skype.

Can Skype work without Microsoft when it comes to peer to peer videochat? Or is the cloud involved in some way? There are millions Skype software out there on internet and in private computers, so I wonder if Microsoft can delete them all? How will this be done of Microsoft when they stop with Skype? Maybe they only stop updates but Skype can still exist?

[topt]

11 hours ago, Captor said:

Can Skype work without Microsoft when it comes to peer to peer videochat? Or is the cloud involved in some way? There are millions Skype software out there on internet and in private computers, so I wonder if Microsoft can delete them all? How will this be done of Microsoft when they stop with Skype? Maybe they only stop updates but Skype can still exist?

No. I believe Skype has been run through Microsoft servers for a long time now .............

Skype contacts etc only available until Jan 2026 unless you transfer them.

From the email -

Quote

• Your Skype data will remain available until January 2026 should you need more time to decide which option is best for you. Alternatively, you can also choose to delete your data. If you don’t take any action by January 2026, your data will be automatically deleted.

 

[Captor]

17 hours ago, topt said:

No. I believe Skype has been run through Microsoft servers for a long time now .............

Skype contacts etc only available until Jan 2026 unless you transfer them.

From the email -

 

Thanks, yes that is propably the case. But how did Skype work before Microsoft bought it? Was Skype run trough a server that time as well or was it direct with no server between the peers?

[topt]

3 hours ago, Captor said:

Thanks, yes that is propably the case. But how did Skype work before Microsoft bought it? Was Skype run trough a server that time as well or was it direct with no server between the peers?

Skype originally set up as peer to peer which I believe continued under Ebay ownership until Microsoft bought it in 2011 after which things definitely changed.

 

Depending on what you read it suggests that even when p2p there was still some sort of centralised server for some functions.

 

Quick search found this as one of the clearest links I came across -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype

[John L.]

What about North VPN? I use that. Thank you.

[Captor]

17 hours ago, topt said:

Skype originally set up as peer to peer which I believe continued under Ebay ownership until Microsoft bought it in 2011 after which things definitely changed.

 

Depending on what you read it suggests that even when p2p there was still some sort of centralised server for some functions.

 

Quick search found this as one of the clearest links I came across -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype

Thanks for the link and all the other information as well. Interesting info about Skype. I did not know it was sold twice. First to Ebay and then to Microsoft. A lot of money involved. Also interesting info about Zeenström and Friis. I followed their links as well.

 

It look like we have to try Teams then after 5:th of May. Problem is the video quality and also the sound that is excellent in Skype. I have tried several other Voip apps and so far none of them had the same quality. Maybe Teams is better now than a couple of years ago when I used it in my work when we had quick, informal video meetings. 

[xylophone]

I have Skype loaded on my PC (Windows 10) and use this medium to call my Bank and relatives in Australia using the microphone plugged into my PC. I don't really want to have to use my very old iPhone 5 SE to load up an App so what is a PC based alternative?? Thanks.

[swissie]

So far, the only thing that works perfectly on "teams" is that a horde of people are thying to chat with me. I don't know these people. How did they get my skype/teams adress/my user ID ???????