Are there any equivalent programs to Skype?

[jnelsoninjax]

I like how Skype has the ringing to alert of an incoming call, and I realize that most of the other programs like it (zoom, WebEx, etc) don't have that feature. I like Skype, but it has its share of minor bugs and annoyances that has me looking for something along the same lines as it. Does anything else exist that has the features I am looking for?

[+Biscuits Brown MVC]

Are you looking for strictly mobile or do you need to use it on a PC? What are the bugs and annoyances. Maybe you will have better luck addressing them.

 

[Dick Montage]

3 minutes ago, jnelsoninjax said:

I like how Skype has the ringing to alert of an incoming call, and I realize that most of the other programs like it (zoom, WebEx, etc) don't have that feature.

Uh, Zoom sure as hell does have that feature.  It's a terrible ringtone and sounds like a child's toy!

[Brandon H Supervisor]

Have you tried Teams yet? It's available for personal use now and is essentially the successor to Skype at this point.

 

Outside of that I think the usuals support ringing as well:

• Facebook Messenger
• Discord
• Slack (haven't used the calling feature on Slack myself but I believe it supports ringing as well)

 

If none of those suit your needs then please let us know what other features you require from a suite and it should help us out to point you in the right direction  

[jnelsoninjax]

27 minutes ago, Dick Montage said:

Uh, Zoom sure as hell does have that feature.  It's a terrible ringtone and sounds like a child's toy!

I wasn't aware of that, how do I enable it?

28 minutes ago, Brandon H said:

Have you tried Teams yet? It's available for personal use now and is essentially the successor to Skype at this point.

 

Outside of that I think the usuals support ringing as well:

• Facebook Messenger
• Discord
• Slack (haven't used the calling feature on Slack myself but I believe it supports ringing as well)

 

If none of those suit your needs then please let us know what other features you require from a suite and it should help us out to point you in the right direction  

I have not tried Teams, I forgot about that one, Facebook messenger would mean I have to have a Facebook account, and I don't see that happening! Does Discord and Slack do video chat? That is what I am after, sorry if I didn't make that clear.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

6 minutes ago, jnelsoninjax said:

I have not tried Teams, I forgot about that one, Facebook messenger would mean I have to have a Facebook account, and I don't see that happening! Does Discord and Slack do video chat? That is what I am after, sorry if I didn't make that clear.

Discord does video chat for sure. Slack I'm not sure if video is supported on a free tier server or not as when I was running a Slack server we had the calling feature disabled as it wasn't needed for our use case.

 

Here's a good question for clarification. Will these be group video chats or just individuals contacting you? If this isn't for a group then I'd rule out Slack as any slack use requires a group 'server' be setup.
Discord is closer to Teams and Skype where calls/video can be done on an individual or group/conference basis.

 

Sure Discord is gaming oriented but you don't HAVE to use that portion of it; it's still a great messenger app and has some good codecs for the audio/video calls.

 

edit: I think I'd recommend starting with trying Teams though as it has interconnectivity with Skype contacts now, I believe, so you may not even have to re-setup your friends list if it allows that to be carried over.

[jnelsoninjax]

1 minute ago, Brandon H said:

Discord does video chat for sure. Slack I'm not sure if video is supported on a free tier server or not as when I was running a Slack server we had the calling feature disabled as it wasn't needed for our use case.

 

Here's a good question for clarification. Will these be group video chats or just individuals contacting you? If this isn't for a group then I'd rule out Slack as any slack use requires a group 'server' be setup.
Discord is closer to Teams and Skype where calls/video can be done on an individual or group/conference basis.

 

Sure Discord is gaming oriented but you don't HAVE to use that portion of it; it's still a great messenger app and has some good codecs for the audio/video calls.

Individual use, maybe adding one other person (total of 3) but most of the time, just 1 other.

[Dick Montage]

7 minutes ago, jnelsoninjax said:

I wasn't aware of that, how do I enable it?

If I am signed into Zoom and someone calls me, it just does it?

[Brandon H Supervisor]

gotta be honest. I haven't touched Zoom so I'm not sure what features/functionality it has. I know they finally caved and added E2E encryption by default but it still leaves a foul taste in my mouth that they thought they could get away without it at first earlier last year ...

[jnelsoninjax]

14 minutes ago, Dick Montage said:

If I am signed into Zoom and someone calls me, it just does it?

IDK, I have only used Zoom once, and it was a PITA to get the other person connected, it first put them in the waiting room and did not notify me until I got an email message telling me they were waiting, and then it took more time once they were in the meeting to get audio and video, it started with video no audio, then the video went away and it was just audio, then the stars aligned just right and I had audio and video!

@Brandon HI just checked Slack and it shows 1 on 1 video under the free plan.

[Dick Montage]

4 minutes ago, jnelsoninjax said:

IDK, I have only used Zoom once, and it was a PITA to get the other person connected, it first put them in the waiting room and did not notify me until I got an email message telling me they were waiting, and then it took more time once they were in the meeting to get audio and video, it started with video no audio, then the video went away and it was just audio, then the stars aligned just right and I had audio and video!

If you wanna send me your Zoom id, I can try to call you?

 

[jnelsoninjax]

3 minutes ago, Dick Montage said:

If you wanna send me your Zoom id, I can try to call you?

 

Thanks for the offer, but I have to run and do some chores, but if you are on later, I hit you with a PM and we can try then.

[+E.Worm Jimmy Subscriber¹]

whatsapp, signal, telegram - AFAIK they all have mobile and desktop apps, they all have ringtones and all have video calling too.

 

i am not sure why you don't use one of those IMs instead of Zoom - which is more for conferencing clearly.