We don't know what MS will do yet. Skype has been kind of aggressive in installing plugins and stuff without even asking before so i don't believe it will get worst.

was just repeating what I've been told. and I trust my source, nothing he's told me yet has been crap, everything from the PS3's having the "Install other OS" option removed (he told me about that 6 months before it happened) And also the introduction of DRM in Windows Media Player 10 (Told me about that about 6 months before it happened also) Amongst other things, (Just woke up so cant think of much at the moment). Either way, over many years I've come to trust him, as he's never been wrong yet.

Not sure about the aggressive plugin installing, I've never had it, then again, every time I load skype the Extras manager crashes immediately. so I've never been able to use it. (Must have something to do with XP X64 SP1's 32bit emulator)

Did some digging:
http://memeburn.com/2011/07/microsoft-and-skype-set-to-allow-backdoor-eavesdropping/

It's almost been six months now ;) and so far nothing at all has changed, except the copyright messages and the ability to log in using a Microsoft Live account.

In fact, I'm disappointed that nothing changed, because when I heard that Microsoft bought Skype, I thought that maybe they would use their experience with Messenger/Lync to actually fix Skype, something which Skype themselves haven't ever bothered to do in their 8 years of existence. Deal-breaking bugs that have been reported 5 years ago, get several dozens of frustrated user comments every month, and no official ever bothers to reply, or say that someone's looking into it (because no one is, I assume). There's no money in fixing something people use in it's broken state anyway, I guess. And now Microsoft is closing the service that works (Messenger) for the one that never has and maybe never will (Skype).

All in all, this entire thing has been a catastrophic debacle—but not at all for the reasons people initially feared.

Well, it's changed now. Won't sign in with my skype ID, just sits there with the useless spinning circle.

or, I can use a "Live ID" -NO, I want to use my existing Skype ID.
or, I can use a "Facebook login" - NO, I want to use my EXISTING skype ID. I don't want to make a crapbook account just to use the same program I've been using for years.

-Uninstalled. Hello Trillian, oh, what a surprise, my Skype ID works in Trillian.

Cool yup, I switched over to Trillian as well, since the announcement that Messenger users would be forced over to Skype, which I really couldn't bear. Trillian seems to be the only multi-protocol IM that supports Skype without having the full Skype client running alongside. Unfortunately it doesn't work on the Android version. Which is, of course, entirely the fault of Skype/Microsoft, and not Trillian/Cerulean. I'd really prefer to ditch Skype altogether, but that's the problem with IMs, you're kind of forced to use what your contacts use.

Yeah, I agree. I like Hangouts myself, haven't tried Facetime yet. I think the thing that keeps Skype alive is it's established user base. Lots of people have gotten so accustomed to it, it's tough for them to move away.

Hi @dudu_brz,

Sorry no one caught this question til now. This is actually something imposed by the app and the app's developers. Email typically uses a protocol that's shared across email apps. But messaging doesn't have a single protocol like that, it depends on how the developers implement it.

There are apps like:
Franz
Pidgin

They work across multiple protocols and services. However, your friends would still need the specific messaging app/protocol you use to send the message.

Hope that makes sense/helps. Have a great day. :)

Best regards,
David

That's exactly my issue with it, though oddly enough, it always worked super fast for me in Linux desktops. It's only on Windows it was slow and cumbersome for me. Plus, the Windows version showed ads whereas the Linux version didn't. Not sure if it's still the same in current versions, but was definitely odd.

Oh, and actually, the Android version worked fine for me as well. Just as fast as the Linux version from my testing.