• 0

Are there any equivalent programs to Skype?


Question

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?

12 answers to this question

Recommended Posts

  • 0
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!

  • 0

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 :) 

  • 0
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.

  • 0
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.

  • 0
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.

  • 0

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 ...

  • 0
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.

  • 0
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?

 

  • 0
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.

  • 0

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.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • The machines are starting to fight back any way they can.
    • No news articles about the Arch Linux repo being majorly infected with malware?!?
    • Waymo recalls self-driving software after cars enter closed freeway work zones by Paul Hill Waymo, the self-driving car maker owned by Alphabet – the parent company of Google –, has recalled some of its fifth-generation Automated Driving Systems (ADS). It did so after some of its cars drove through closed construction zones. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the affected vehicles were capable of driving through a closed freeway construction zone and continuing to drive at speed. The listing on the NHTSA website says that Waymo is currently developing a solution to fix this issue, but in the meantime, freeway driving is being restricted. Waymo will update its ADS software so that vehicles can detect when they can avoid entering construction zones. According to the Safety Recall Report, on April 20, 2026, Waymo’s Field Safety Committee began meetings reviewing an event from April 11, 2026, and five events from April 19, 2026, where Waymo’s autonomous vehicles didn’t recognize and drove past ramp closure signs into the pre-planned freeway construction zones. This took place in Phoenix, Arizona. Separately, on May 18, 2026, seven Waymo vehicles entered freeway lanes with active construction in the San Francisco Bay Area by driving between cones that were placed to show the lane was closed. On the back of both of these events, Waymo restricted freeway driving until it could address the issue. In June, Waymo’s Safety Board reviewed the issue and additional information related to ADS performances around construction zones; then, as a result, it decided to conduct a recall. This development is not good for Waymo as it adds to a growing list of technical hiccups its cars have experienced. Ultimately, it will lead to more scrutiny from lawmakers around the world who will be more cautious about letting autonomous vehicles on their roads without tighter regulation. For readers in areas where Waymo operates, does this news make you more wary about stepping into one of these vehicles?
    • I'm still on Windows 10 22H2 because I didn't want to deal with all the issues in Windows 11, so I waited almost a week before installing the latest Patch Tuesday update (KB5094127), I went ahead and did it, and it was a huge mistake—ever since then, my File Explorer has seen a performance drop of about 30% when transferring large files... Once again, Microsoft has outdone itself! This update cannot be uninstalled, either through the Control Panel (via Settings) or by accessing Advanced Startup Options. The only possible alternative would be to use system restore points, but I’d have to reinstall all app and driver updates (and there’s no guarantee it would work). Or there’s the “nuclear option” of a in-place repair without losing files or apps, but even then, all my customizations would be lost! Microsoft just can’t help but mess everything up! Way to go, Microsoft! But I still don’t want your c****y Windows 11!
    • Microsoft: Windows 11 could finally solve a major issue across AMD, Nvidia, and Intel GPUs by Sayan Sen While Microsoft has been trying to improve it, Windows 11 is definitely not flawless, as even today some issues are taking a year to publicly acknowledge. However, one area of trouble that may finally see much better results soon is graphics driver crashes. Work on graphics driver timeouts, also called Timeout and Detection Recovery (TDR), is not new as the latest WDDM 3.2 also has specific improvements regarding it. Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) version 3.2 is supported on Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2. However, with the upcoming version 26H2, TDR crash diagnosis could go to the next level as Microsoft is introducing a new DirectX 12 API feature called "DirectX Dump Files". Similar to how system memory dump files work when a system crashes or freezes or encounters any such major issue, DirectX Dump Files (DDF) will essentially record a snapshot of the GPU execution right at the moment a graphics-related crash or hang or freeze occurs, so that developers can better understand and diagnoze these TDR and timeout detection errors. The dump will be available as a .dxdmp file for analysis and it will be a comprehensive dump file generated with detailed insights about the hardware, drivers, Windows, as well as the affected application. This should be another welcome change in this department. Earlier at GDC 2026, when the technology was first debuted, Microsoft had shared more details regarding it. The company had explained how DDF is designed to gather data from every layer of the graphics stack into a single file, eliminating the need for developers to manually correlate logs from multiple tools. As mentioned above, the dump can contain a lot of useful details like GPU hardware state information such as register values, shader program counters, page fault virtual addresses, shader memory data, and command buffers. Alongside that, it also captures DirectX runtime and kernel information, including D3D objects, pipeline state objects, device error data, adapter details, and CPU call stacks. Microsoft says the feature has been built around two primary use cases: retail device removals and local device removals. The former allows developers to collect crash information from end users' systems in the field, while the latter helps QA teams and developers investigate issues on test machines. Developers will also be able to include up to 2 MB of custom application data through new D3D12 APIs, providing additional context for troubleshooting. In addition, Microsoft is introducing three dump collection modes ranging from zero-overhead capture, which has no runtime performance impact on supported hardware, to higher-detail modes that collect more vendor-specific debugging data. On compatible Tier 2 hardware, zero-overhead dumps will be enabled by default, meaning developers may begin receiving useful crash diagnostics without making any code changes. The table below explains the three tiers: Tier Description NO_OVERHEAD Enables crash capture with no runtime cost and is suitable for broad deployment MEDIUM_OVERHEAD Provides a balance, capturing additional diagnostic data with moderate impact HIGH_OVERHEAD Collects the most detailed GPU and driver state available, enabling deeper investigation at the cost of higher runtime overhead In terms of availability, the company expects broader release to be around the fall of 2026, which should be right around the time when Windows 11 version 26H2 lands. Right now, DirectX Dump Files are available as a preview and currently, only AMD has the compatible AgilitySDK Developer Preview driver version 26.10.07.02. You can find the official announcement post here on Microsoft's website.
  • Recent Achievements

    • Week One Done
      Eurosoft10 earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      Eurosoft10 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • One Year In
      Skeet Campbell earned a badge
      One Year In
    • One Month Later
      Sharbel earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • First Post
      BizSAR earned a badge
      First Post
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      599
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      190
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      79
    4. 4
      Michael Scrip
      77
    5. 5
      Steven P.
      70
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!