Microsoft gets ready to kill Skype Classic once again: 'This time we mean it' Skype 7 (aka Classic) has finally run out of lives. Microsoft yesterday announced plans to kill it off once and for all in an update to a two-month-old blog-post. In what a cynic might suggest was done in a way designed to avoid too much attention, the update to the original post warned that support for Skype 7 on desktop …
Maybe they meant T2 data slurping is hidden better - I really don't know how Skype could have GDPR issues as long as they don't collect PI, like slurping user address books, or storing their messages/calls for "further analysis to improve the user experience" - tasks which really don't look to depend on the technology used.
If they really abode to GDPR, they should have ditched Windows 10 already - as it has several privacy issues that one day will land them in trouble....
If they really abode to GDPR, they should have ditched Windows 10 already - as it has several privacy issues that one day will land them in trouble....
Skype is probably low-hanging fruit and an easy target. For GDPR enforcement, Win 10 is a whole different game and may take quite awhile for regulators to sort out.
Dom Dz wrote previously:
>Has anyone seen the petition pages to keep Classic Skype, alive? Nisse has over 1,000 signatures and
>rising. We can only hope that Microsoft *will* listen, when it comes to this. It would be a great way to build
>back some much needed trust with their user base. Our voices *have* been loud, but it looks like we
>need to be louder than ever before!
It's NOT too late! Link to the petition here: saveskype7.com
I use Skype every week to talk to an elderly and technophobic relative, on the far side of the planet.
What version is he using? Heck if I know, and I'm damn sure he wouldn't even understand the question. But if it suddenly stops working, I wouldn't give much for his chances of learning to use anything else. It's taken him several years to learn how to receive calls on Skype, and even now he's far from confident with it.
Dear Microsoft: is it really asking too much for you to just STOP FUCKING AROUND WITH THINGS THAT ALREADY WORK?
Currently only one windows device on your network should download updates from Microsoft, the others will then download the updates from the updated device's update cache.
I could see Brexit being a good opportunity to extend this and make devices share their updates with other windows machines over the public internet, this would mean Microsoft would only need to distribute the updates to 15% (example number) of devices and then they would share the update with others over the internet via P2P. That would massively cut the amount of bandwidth Microsoft 'spends' on distribution updates.
If you looks at a map of submarine fiber optic data cables you will see that most of the cables connecting the US and Europe are US-UK cables, add in that we are leaving the common market for services and Microsoft could try and use this as an excuse to do this. They still have data centers in the EU so it wouldn't be a genuine reason but they could try and use it as one.
Do you feel the same about BitTorrent?
No, because:
1) It is for crappy media or Linux ISOs and I always do a separate sha256 checksum test on those.
2) I can tun my BT client on and off with ease and in an obvious place, and not magically find that I have seeded many GB of OS image over some fee-paying or bandwidth restricted network route.
"1) It is for crappy media or Linux ISOs and I always do a separate sha256 checksum test on those."
How many times have your BT downloads had wrong checksum? (not that I have anything against checksum checking)
BT is fine for many types of software delivery. Each BT piece is hashed, so chance of delivering malformed files is rather minuscule. I've personally used P2P since Napster. The total ingress data is in terabyte range yet I can't remember malformed files getting through the clients.
Also, MS patches are signed, what makes you think Windows - or any OS - doesn't validate the updates first?
2) I can tun my BT client on and off with ease and in an obvious place, and not magically find that I have seeded many GB of OS image over some fee-paying or bandwidth restricted network route.
The setting to turn this off lies obviously within the Windows Update settings. Besides turning on/off, you can configure it to work only within your local network. If you have multiple computers the bandwidth savings can be tremendous.
But all this you knew already.
That what WSUS is designed for in any network large enough. Windows 10 can do it for smaller networks as well (and even for people not on your network, I'm afraid ugh!)
Still, I believe MS is not so fool and not using distributed severs across the globe to deliver updates, and does it only from servers in Redmond...
Currently only one windows device on your network should download updates from Microsoft, the others will then download the updates from the updated device's update cache.
Security issues (which are potentially big ones) aside on this, they're just moving the bandwidth charges to the customers. I don't want someone pulling an update from my computer and using my bandwidth. I'm a bit cranky about this whole scheme.
The truth is, Microsoft like to change user interfacesin orderbecause the ADHD-addled Millennials in their Marketing department get bored with this current one, which has the expected effect (for everyone except said ADHD-addled Millennials) to piss off users. It's the only logical explanation.
There, FTFY
"This seems to be their main hobby.
If it works, break it.
If it's useful, hide it.
If they like it, change it."
That's the only way they know to make something "New & Improved".
Eventually MS will piss off the wrong people, or enough people, and go the way of a bunch of other used to be, world wide corporations.
"Microsoft like to change user interfaces in order to piss off users"
Seems like it, huh? I don't think it's outright deliberate. Just negligently clueless and selfishly arrogant.
Well, Micro-shaft CLAIMS that they're continuing 'to work on your most requested features". Yet the article points out that the most requested features are, basically, to RESTORE the capabilities of "skype classic".
But you _KNOW_ Micro-shaft will *NEVAR* do that. Why should they? They're MICRO-SHAFT! If they don't like it, then it was never even mentioned (*cough* *cough*), at least not 'enough' to be 'most requested' [I think their dictionary definition of 'most requested' might need some serious re-editing] and so they fly off into "la la la I'm not listening" mode with their hands firmly planted against their ears as if NOT perceiving it means it doesn't happen...
Micro-shaft started doing this when 'Ape' (windows 8) released. Why is anyone surprised? Ok nobody is, and this is why many of us *SNARK* about it. I miss their customer-centric attitude (ok not entirely but still...) when 7 was released. Now it's "world domination"-centric. Right?
I would really like outdated versions of skype NOT to cry "invalid password" when all that is needed is an upgrade. Yes, I have skype lying around for when I have to contact the old fart, once ever 6 months .... and each time it claims my password is incorrect, this only tricked me the first time it happened several years ago ... it is Skype-speak for "a newer version is out and you MUST install that one."
Why they cannot figure out a way to do what other software has been doing for the last two decades, including Skype (before it was purchased by MS), I dunno ... I guess they thought that that feature is not really required because ... this is the ultimate version of Skype and it is perfect & bugfree, there will be no other, ever!
I looks like Microsoft's business plan is working
https://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/containing/3212650
I wasn't even aware that the deadline had been extended. I ran down my Skype credit and stop using it before the original deadline.
When I want free mobile to mobile calls I use WhatsApp. Oh well, out of the frying pan into the fire.
How can they even fuck this up so much?
Because my mother is one of those horrible job stealing imgrints she has lots of family in different countries who she needs to be able to call, phone packages that cover lots of countries like the Netherlands and New Zealand (the two countries she regularly calls) are expensive, so I set her up with a skype account, a skype phone number and a skype package that covered those countries.
What do the fuckers at microsoft (trust me it isn't micro or soft when they fuck you with it) do? They kill off physical skype phones, so now you can only call with the app. And the app, my fucking god that app, it must have been designed by some sort of god damn demon that feeds off the tears of tech support. You have to go though 5 nested menus in order to get to the dialer to actually make a phone call.
Once the packages expire I will move her to a SIP phone.
I remember testing Windows 10. The most requested feature was the return of Aero; didn't happen. I requested the return of a full backup program (and had hundreds of "me too's" for that); didn't happen. I do not remember everything from then, but I do remember this: some of the most requested items in the Win10 beta were ignored. I concluded when it was all said and done that Microsoft was like a spoiled brat. They weren't looking for feedback, they were looking for affirmation. Requests that satisfied their idiotic vision were listened too, but the majority requests that did not jive with that were ignored.
The same is clearly true with Skype. Microsoft is still a petulant child. They claim to want your feedback, but they do not. What they want is for you to stroke their ego. Would you expect any less really? It is the same old story: big company buys smaller company, big company gets rid of people who made smaller company, people stop using smaller company's product, big company wonders why. I stopped using Skype a very long time ago because it just wasn't that good anymore. All Microsoft has to do to make it good is listen and I mean really listen -- something they have shown an inability to do since SatNad took over.
'm pretty sure I remember Microsoft not listening under Ballmer either.
If you don't agree, explain Vista to me then.
Vista wasn't bad because it lacked the features people wanted. It was bad because it was already years behind schedule, so the marketing guys got the better of the company and they essentially released whatever it was they had at the arbitrary date-- and it wasn't ready.
Vista evolved into its very close sibling, the ever popular Windows 7, because MS listened to what people hated about Vista and fixed it. Vista itself got a lot better in time, but few noticed as everyone had already written it off by then, so their only memories of using it were from a time when it was still terrible.
Microsoft could have told people that Vista was the last version of Windows ever (so get on board, you have no choice) and sabotaged XP so that it would not work correctly with any architecture from Core 2 forward, but they didn't. They could have done a lot of things to force people to use Vista even though they hated it, but instead they corrected the problems and gave people a product that remains the most popular Windows version almost a decade later, and almost at the end of its extended support period.
If that's not listening to what people want, what is?
Pretty much spot on, but I will add one more reason that Vista flopped - it was too CPU and memory intensive for hardware of the time. When Vista came out, PCs were single-core systems with 1-2GB of RAM, plus onboard graphics were quite shonky back then. XP ran fine on these systems, Vista did not. Hence it immediately developed a reputation for being slow (in addition to the messy UI and flaky driver support).
Saying that, Windows 7 will also run like crap on a single-core PC with 1GB of RAM. Only difference is that by the time Windows 7 was released, 4GB of RAM and a dual core CPU were now pretty-much standard issue, on-board graphics could now handle Aero with ease, hence Windows 7 ran very nicely and everyone was happy.
"The most requested feature was the return of Aero"
MS interpreted it that way; actually, it was the return of 3D SKEUOMORPHIC as I recall, being one of the LOUD voices in that regard, back during the 'insider' program. There were MANY of us saying that.
Micro-shaft then *INTERPRETED* that as "Aero". Then they abandoned the idea. Typical.
1) pretend to "listen" to customers
2) re-package what they say into MS-friendly market-speak that nobody can truly *disagree* with
3) shelve it
This is how Micro-shaft "listens" to their customers.
"They weren't looking for feedback, they were looking for affirmation. Requests that satisfied their idiotic vision were listened too, but the majority requests that did not jive with that were ignored."
Everything from the company Suggestion Box to government organised "wide ranging consultations" work like that.
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Its always interesting who Microsoft do and don't listen to. They listen to Wall Street! MS promised to monetize Win10 and so they will. Just as soon as the Google / Facebook scandals calm down a little.... Then its coming! However overall, not listening to users is the new norm....
Why? The holy religion of PR has overtaken santity / reality...
This applies to the whole of Silly 'con' valley from Cali to South Korea. If they listened, they'd stop bolting surveillance onto every IoT phone-home cloudy product including cars and hotel rooms! Vizio SmartTV in particular, here's looking at you bitch...
They can still make Smart products just make them more privacy-focused and offline and anti-cloud. But oh no, that's not the masterplan here. Its 24/7 delicious surveillance that's what's going to happen. Dystopia-Central / 1984 meets Blakes7. Typical example below...
________
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-09-21/amazon-s-alexa-soon-all-home-appliances-will-be-listening-in
"Amazon probably wanted its latest new product presentation to be exciting. Instead, it SCARED me."
some of the most requested items in the Win10 beta were ignored
The internal discussion probably concluded that the most requested items didn't, in any reasonable way, help to monetize Windows 10, so the people who requested them obviously weren't thinking straight.
I stopped using Skype soon after Microsoft took it over. Nothing against Microsoft, but it just didn't work any more. Especially exasperating was that calling from Android or desktop to iPad wouldn't ring. Adding to the frustration, every time I went to use Skype it would no longer work, and I would have to spend 10 minutes downloading and installing a new version, then trying to figure out which password it wanted. I just fired it up again yesterday because I got an email saying that an old credit was expiring. My existing desktop version (less than year old) crashed with an error on launch, and again I had to go through the fresh download, install and login process.
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