Fring Calls Skype 'Cowards'; Skype Responds

An anonymous reader writes "It seems that Skype and Fring are not getting along so well today. First, Fring made a claim that Skype was blocking Fring and in a subsequent blog post, called Skype 'cowards': 'Now that Fring expanded capacity to support the huge demand for video calling for all users, Skype has blocked us from doing so. They are afraid of open mobile communication. Cowards.' Skype has responded, stating that Fring's misuse of Skype software was damaging their brand and reputation: 'There is no truth to Fring's claims that Skype has blocked it. Fring made the decision to remove Skype functionality on its own.'

Skype, Make an ANDROID CLIENT!!

[Anonymous Coward]

If skype would just make a fully featured android client then we wouldn't have to resort to fring or nimbuzz or anything else. Come on skype. I don't care about the finger pointing, just want my functionality back!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:I tend choose Skype side in this one

[bemymonkey]

Same here, although I'm basing this on my past experiences with Fring on Windows Mobile and Android - not sure what the iPhone version is like.

They were pretty awful...

1. Horrible interface - incredibly ugly, unintuitive, and not very consistent
2. Not very reliable in either the sense of program stability or the ability to connect consistently
3. Horrible, horrible horrible horrible (!!!!!) Skype VoIP quality. Skype calls through Fring on Android, for instance, sound far worse than with, say, Nimbuzz. While Nimbuzz Skype calls are better than GSM in terms of clarity and on par in terms of latency, Fring sounds scratchy, overly compressed and introduces pretty bad latencies.

I can definitely see where Skype's coming from, and would agree: Fring has been damaging Skype's image.

That said, I don't like what Skype's been doing lately either - exclusive partnerships with Verizon, no Android app whatsoever...

Re:I tend choose Skype side in this one

[MemoryDragon]

Problem with skype at least on Android is that they delivered a close to unusable client, now Fring and others have jumped in where skype failed to deliver.
The skype client on Android does a normal phone call to the next dial in server btw. which is exactly what a user of the software who already has an ip connection
does not want.
So they should stop to complain if others deliver and they dont

Re:I tend choose Skype side in this one

[Mr2001]

what's wrong with "these seats are reserved for my wife and I" ?

"My wife and I" is only grammatically correct when "I" would be correct on its own: you wouldn't say "reserved for I", so you shouldn't say "reserved for my wife and I" either. "These seats are reserved for my wife and me" is correct.

Re:I tend choose Skype side in this one

[Anonymous Coward]

I understand why the "whom" in the parent is wrong but what's wrong with "these seats are reserved for my wife and I" ?

Serious question. I thought that was the correct way.

The correct sentence would be:
"These seats are reserved for my wife and _me_",
as the sentence needs to make sense when the other person is removed.
So, "The wife and I went to the shops" -> "I went to the shops".
"These seats are reserved for my wife and me" -> "These seats are reserved for me".

You see?

Re:Not so sure Fring is the bad guy here.

[sznupi]

And that's not even strictly about iOS4 - Fring is quite popular, from what I see, also on Symbian; where there is also an official Skype client, also without Skype videocalling (which Fring brought to the table last year)

Re:I tend choose Skype side in this one

[silentcoder]

Skype isn't just slow on IOS, they still haven't released a 64-bit version of the Linux client which is a major problem for video-calling because 32-bit apps cannot talk properly to the 63-bit V4L driver. You can see cams from outside but your own cam is just a jumbled mess of static.
The short result of this is that I haven't bothered to log into skype in a very long time. It takes some kludging to get google-video going on Linux but at least it CAN be done.

Skype has lost the plot

[jonwil]

The things Skype has done lately demonstrate that Skype can be added to the list of "companies that dont care about their customers anymore".

By not releasing an Android client (for anyone other than Verizon customers) or a better iPhone client, all they are doing is driving customers to their competitors.

Although maybe some of this business model comes from top people put in place during the time Skype was controlled by eBay.

The skype side being ... spin and damage control

[bpbpbp]

If you read the Robert Miller, Skype's VP of Legal, post, you will surely notice, that they deny technically blocking fring, but don't deny leagally threatening them if they continue to provide skype connectivity. Which is exactly what fring has written in it's press release. The rest about fring damaging their brand reputation is peanuts compared to what they have done themselves with this move. With prompt response skype has generated enough spin, through which they were able to confuse some pinheads, which now resort to nothing more than blind faith when choosing sides. #$%&!

Re:I tend choose Skype side in this one

[Joe Tie.]

That's among the things which made me laugh at all their protests about protecting the quality of their name. Skype works great on windows and pretty well on osx. That's two platforms out of a multitude they have clients for. And outside of those two, skype is by default buggy and with insane design flaws. Quality software is the last thing I've ever thought about when hearing their name.

Re:I tend choose Skype side in this one

[Steve Max]

Nope, that's 32-bit only. The "64 bit" .DEB they offer contains only this executable:

$ ar -x skype-ubuntu-intrepid_2.1.0.81-1_amd64.deb && tar -xf data.tar.gz && file usr/bin/*
usr/bin/skype: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.8, stripped

They only make it installable on 64 bit system through the package manager. It's still compiled for 32 bits only.

Re:I tend choose Skype side in this one

[zarthrag]

I agree 100%. Skype says they want their client everywhere, that makes the verizon deal is just 100% retarded. My wife spends no less than $400/yr with them calling home to Jamaica - they are the cheapest out there. I got her an android, and was a bit pissed/surprised there isn't a skype client on the market. But Fring.... my wife hates it, but uses it for lack of choice: sothanks for the heads-up on nimbuzz, I'll put her on it asap. I uninstalled f'n fring the moment I realized that it was actually resetting my privacy settings on skype every time I log in. (I normally have the "only folks on my contact list can message me" option turned on.) So my desktop kept getting the usual "wanna cyber?" spam bots and every time I went to options, my setting was reset. Fring support won't reply to questions about this at all. I suppose it interferes with their company objective: pissing everyone off.

Re:I tend choose Skype side in this one

[Just Some Guy]

"And the whole issue with charging for Skype Over 3G? I already pay you for a monthly subscription, now I will have to pay extra to use it on my iPhone over 3G? "

Oh, isn't that a cute one? I don't even have an iPhone and that pisses me off. Basically, Skype-to-Skype calls are currently free. Well, in a few months, Skype wants to start charging you if your end of the TCP tunnel is in a 3G netblock. You're still getting the exact same service as if you were connecting over Wi-Fi, but paying Skype for the privilege of using AT&T as your ISP instead of whatever hotspot you happened to be near.

The fanboys defending them claim that AT&T is requiring Skype to do this, but haven't explained why every other VOIP provider than Skype charges the same rates whether you're calling from a 3G address or from a Wi-Fi address.