Gaming Skype Client Alternatives?

[Dangy]

I'm so sick of Skype, it's full of ads and stuff I don't need. Unfortunately, it's what most of my friends use. Is there a light/lite version of Skype that I will hardly notice running in the background, but still has Video Call/Chat features?

 

[Rydian]

Everything using the current version of skype's protocol needs to leech off of the skype client itself, you can see how the pidgin plugin handles for you (I only use it for text, I fure up the actual client to do voice/video).
http://code.google.com/p/skype4pidgin/
And read the "important update" thing here.
http://eion.robbmob.com/
And since Skype really doesn't want you to do this (they love their ads), it'll bug you every damned time you start it up because it refuses to actually add pidgin to the "allowed" list of programs to leech off of it... I ended up having to edit the fucking config files manually, but forgot what was involved.

Otherwise you could try running the linux version (which is ass-old) in a VM or something.

 

[Thesolcity]

Skype has ads?

 

[exangel]

OoVoo - http://www.oovoo.com/home.aspx - tried to use this when it was a startup, and it was nice, but i can't remember why me and my ex decided to go back to Skype.
Oh, Oovoo also did "group video chat" before Skype did.

Google chat/voice/video - I used this with a friend who refused to get skype but at the time it was browser-based, i don't know about now. It's had video features for at least a year now.

there used to be a light version (or rather, old but still working version) of Skype but i don't know if it works anymore. I've wanted a working, ideally first-party "light version" ever since they merely announced integrating facebook, I protested it, but eventually just lived with it and made sure to simply avoid that feature.

 

[coolness]

i use Gtalk as my alternate
since i dont have Windows live on my mini laptop with Linux ubuntu

 

[exangel]

i use Gtalk as my alternate
since i dont have Windows live on my mini laptop with Linux ubuntu

yeah, google talk, that's what i meant about the Google Chat/Voice/Video thing XD
Worked great, free, but it looks like the PC software client for google talk doesn't support Video calls still

 

[FluffyLunamoth]

Trillian(5.1 Beta, anyway) has native skype support. It's not the best, but it makes skype much, much nicer to use.

 

[Sora de Eclaune]

Trillian natively supports Skype now. You don't even have to open Skype. It works great, too.

 

[Sanoblue]

Trillian natively supports Skype now. You don't even have to open Skype. It works great, too.

but its only the voice chat no?

 

[Skelletonike]

Skype has ads?

Dozens, and they even removed their games and stuff and now turned to apps like apple... It's pretty lame now..

As for alternatives, I don't use Skype that often and I'm too lazy to use something else, although I find the new Skype really annoying. =S

 

[Walker D]

Nowadays I use Teamspeak more them skype with my friends...

...but I will take a look on this Trillian

 

[NandoLawson]

Congrats for bumping a nearly 10 year old thread.
I think today most people in the gaming scene should use Discord. It has nearly anything that Skype and TeamSpeak had, but way better.

 

[Physix]

You can also use the web verson of skype at web(.)skype(.)com if you don't want to install the client.