Live Messenger/Skype ... we're going backwards

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Skype/WLM have been pretty crap for a long time, my only saving grace is that everybody I know has moved onto Facebook.

It's awesome since I don't have a Facebook account, so it's an easy way to cut communication with them all.

[Denis W. Veteran]

I still have a set of friends that I talk to via Messenger so I do have a need for an IM client that connects to Messenger/.NET. Until recently my preference was to use Pidgin for Messenger on my desktop, and Beejive on my phone. Beejive has gone downhill as of late and can't handle muti-presence chats properly. Pidgin's not bad but I've got a year tops before Messenger stops working on that.

With the incoming shutdown I decided now was the time to see if I could switch over to Skype. Previously I've stayed away for Skype, using it only if a friend bugs me to do a call. Surprisingly, Skype is fairly usable as an instant messaging client. The mobile app also works and chats do sync across devices - most of the time. I haven't tried syncing across two computers but mobile-to-desktop syncing is weird. Messages tend to "bunch" up on the other device where I'm not actively chatting on. Example: if my chat looked like this:

Friend: hey

Me: sup

Friend: not much

Friend: what time are you free tonight?

Me: uh

Me: probably after 8?

Then it'll look like this on the other device:

Friend: hey

Friend: not much

Friend: what time are you free tonight?

Me: sup

Me: uh

Me: probably after 8?

... which is annoying as it completely screws up the order of the conversation.

And there's the matter of syncing messages - if say my laptop was offline while I had a conversation on my phone, then I sign into Skype on my laptop, why does it then dump every message that I received from my friend onto my laptop, but not the messages I sent? Or why is there no option to stop Skype from doing that? Or as was the case yesterday, when I was chatting with a friend via Messenger on Skype, there were two messages he sent me that didn't show up on my phone, but ultimately did when I signed into Skype on my desktop.

Loss of tabs is a bit annoying, but I got used to the style of doing IM over mobile clients, where there are no tabs but open conversations with the complete chat history available until you "close" the conversation. Skype is similar except that you can choose how long to keep chat history.

Other annoyances with Skype: can't disable Skype Home in the default view (no, I don't want to see my Facebook feed repeated here), annoying ads in the mobile app, loss of chat font customization (which could be a good thing for some people - I don't mind either way), can't show your contact list in a tree format with groups (can use Skype lists, but you can only show one list at a time), etc.

As for the Metro Skype app? Used it for a grand total of 30 seconds before giving up. Mind you, I don't hate Metro apps as a whole - I use Tweetro and the metro Mail app on a daily basis (even if the latter app is flawed), but I don't want to see my contact list plastered as huge tiles on the main screen.

Hopefully Microsoft will get around to improving the desktop client. I just hope they don't completely screw up contact handling as they did with Windows Live Messenger when they moved contact management to the web and caused new friend invites to not work half the time.

[neo1911]

What's app or Facebook chat. WLM is dead. R.I.P. !!

[The Evil Overlord]

yup, I think I preferred msn or wlm better also

[SkyDX]

no one said they won't release a new skype version by March

so ya'll wait before you roll your knickers in a knot to see what if anything happens by March 15

Wait wait I thought that the WLM protocol will be usable till 2014? :| Atleast this is what the Trillian devs have stated on their blog :pinch:

EDIT: Ah I get it now, WLM will stop working in March but all third-party clients will work with the regular MSN protocol till 2014, still I don't like this move as for certain reasons I won't talk about WLM is the only way I can stay in contact with some people and when I hear how unreliable the text-messaging part of Skype is... oh deary :pinch:

[George P Global Moderator]

I think by the time messenger stops for good in 2014 that MS will have worked out all the kinks from the Skype client.

[+InsaneNutter MVC]

So really unless your using the official client its normal service as usual, any contacts on the official client will upgrade to Skype and still be able to chat to you.

Ive un-merged my account for now as Trillian was creating two chats when chatting on Skype, one which was coming through on my Windows Live account on Trillian and the other on my Skype account.

[+longgonebn Subscriber²]

I can't believe people are still using it.

I haven't used WLM for over 8 years. I use GChat for those contacts, and Facebook Chat for those Contacts. If I want to do video chat I will use Skype.

No need for a traditional chat program.

[chrisj1968]

The first order of business for Microsoft was to fire the Skype UX team. They obviously don't understand a single thing in how we/humans use software. Their stupid UI design also continues in the Skype metro app - which is horrible and stupid.

I agree. I saw it and was thinking...where do I place a call to my dads PC to video chat with him and my grandson?

[n_K]

Ive un-merged my account for now as Trillian was creating two chats when chatting on Skype, one which was coming through on my Windows Live account on Trillian and the other on my Skype account.

Unmerged, how?

[+InsaneNutter MVC]

Unmerged, how?

Sign in to Skype.com then go to: https://secure.skype.com/portal/profile

You can unlink your Microsoft Account and Facebook accounts here, it warned me something to the effect of "due to the deep integration of your Skype and Microsoft account you can only do this a limited number of times" click ok and your accounts are un-linked :)

[SiCKX]

I use imo.im mostly, but I'm OK with the regular Skype as well, just merged accounts.

[PGHammer]

Well I've been a long time MSN/Live Messenger user and I like Skype way more.

Well for the longest time running Live Messenger was a waste of time since one by one my contacts stopped using it till I had none left.

They all moved to Facebook like everyone else.

So for quite some time I never really talked to anyone since I'm not much into spending time on the Facebook site.

But gave Skype a try when I heard it has Facebook integration, and it works awesome.

So yeah, good riddance to Live Messenger, obsolete.

Precisely.

I had primarily started using Skype because of the audio/video support - the text and SMS support was basically icing. (By the by, if you watch the news *at all*, who HASN'T heard of some correspondent using Skype for sending their hot story? It's not just Fox News (and before them, CNN) any more.)

Because of the Facebook/Skype lashup, Skype is, if anything, even more ubiquitous as a messaging/chat client - regardless of how. That very ubiquity is possibly why there is such resistance - if there is one thing that the Internet seems to hate, it's ubiquity.

Then along came that raid series. As I said, it was done using voice, video, AND text - among all participants - and entirely in real time. I was, in fact, the ONLY participant running Windows 8 - two were still using Windowss XP, for crying out loud.

As far as WLM suport, the ONLY person left that I chat with using the WLM protocol has nary a problem reaching me via Skype (as my Passport had already been migrated to a Microsoft Account and was linked to Facebook) - further increasing my suspicion that it's that anti-ubiquity mantra rearing its head again.