What are the alternatives to Skype?

Question

Skype

In connection with changes in the work of Skype, I decided to take care of finding an alternative. There are a lot of such software on the Internet, but I have not yet been able to find a suitable one for me personally. Please tell me what can replace Skype according to these criteria:

• free
• Availability of group conversations and chats
• Encryption of chats and calls
• optional: screen sharing
• optional: open source
• optional: user-friendly GUI and no intrusive ads

Answer 1

There is no Skype replacement, in the broadest sense. As it was not possible at one time to transfer people from ICQ to Jabber, so now you cannot transfer people from Skype to another place. Skype is simpler and more common, that's all. +Microsoft is now cramming it wherever possible.

Answer 2

Well, all sorts of qips and similar collections of everything and everything out of the box are starting to take over the world. Sometimes you don't even notice how you send a message to [email protected] instead of ICQ.

Answer 3

OoVoO is the same alternative

Answer 4

I really liked Tango, but I only used it on a mobile phone, and I can’t say how it is on a desktop, but I advise you to try it. On a mobile phone, it is especially good because it does not slow down at all, and it works noticeably faster than Skype.

Answer 5

googletalk

Answer 6

For group conversations, pick up FreeSWITCH somewhere and set up a conference on it. Well, you will also need a SIP client, of which there are many different ones.
related links:
habrahabr.ru/post/147328/
habrahabr.ru/post/147695/

Answer 7

Jitsi Messenger seems to support voice and video encryption: jitsi.org/index.php/Documentation/ZrtpFAQ

Answer 8

I use Viber for calls and messages, tango for videos.

Answer 9

I'm also interested in alternatives. I just added cross-platform

Answer 10

You didn't say you need a desktop client, so I'll suggest google+.
Now I'm glad I'm trying to get off Skype. Mine is a great alternative.

Answer 11

I am using flaphone . The quality of the connection is satisfactory.
You can not install the client, but communicate from the browser (you will need Flash Player version 9 or higher).

Answer 12

Let's put the question in a different way: which of the Skype alternatives proposed above support end-to-end audio and video encryption. Text chat can be encrypted in almost any protocol (ICQ, Jabber, MSN etc.) using OTR (via Miranda, Pidgin, Adium), there will already be problems with audio, but about video - I'm not even sure that the video was generally encrypted on Skype.
One more point: even if it is stated that “we have everything encrypted”, then if the source code is closed, there is no guarantee that there are no backdoors.
As an example: there is such a secured mail provider (everything is there: both GPG certificates on the server and passwords): hushmail.com
So, about a year ago, by a court decision, they gave “who needs” the required correspondence of some user despite encryption.
Therefore, only an open source solution can guarantee encryption, and encryption occurs on the user's computer in such a way that it is basically impossible to decrypt the source text / sound / video on the server (without a client key, of course, and the key is not stored on the server).

Answer 13

I have a voice gateway (ATA) on my desk at home, a phone is connected to it. Serves mainly for intercity and international calls. In some cases, this is a very good alternative. For example, teaching ancestors to use such a design is incommensurably easier than Skype. Calls to landline and cell phones to Seoul and Jakarta cost a few rubles per minute (SIPNET).

Answer 14

I use videolink2.me Simple
and free service. I don’t know how things are with encryption, but for all other criteria it fits your description.

Answer 15

There is also Tencent_QQ
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tencent_QQ