Skype will charge for SkypeOut calls as of the start of 2007. It’s a shame that they decided to charge for it now, since I liked not having a long distance plan, but it was fairly obvious that it was going to happen. Even so, their rate of $30/year is still cheaper than most long distance plans from traditional telcos.
Fear not – there are free alternatives. There’s Jajah, although when we tried it, the sound quality was abysmal. I’m not sure if it was the connection or the service itself. VoipBuster is another one, but its name puts me off, I’ve heard little about it at this point, and I’m a bit sceptical. However, the open-source Gizmo will likely be the replacement that I’ll go with. So if I ask you to sign up for a free Gizmo account, try not to act surprised 😉
6 Responses to "trading in skype for a new gizmo"
Chris,
Try jajah again. Th sound quality is usually excellent!
Thanks,
Don Thorson
Jajah
Don,
I definitely will give Jajah another go-around. It was a Sunday morning when we tried it, so I’m doubtful that traffic was an issue. I wonder what other factors could exist.
How’s that for customer service!
Somebody’s paying attention to their referrers. 🙂
What’s more important is, what are you going to do when AVG free is no longer free? Are you paying for the, um…pay version?
Pat,
I don’t use any of the free antivirus apps, like AVG or Avast, on my computers. I pay the modest license fee for Eset’s Nod32, because it’s the best antivirus app available at a fair price. Nod32 scores better on detection tests (like VB100) than the offerings from Symantec, Trend, McAfee, Grisoft, Panda, Kaspersky, CA, etc. It has a small footprint, so it consumes very few resources. And it costs less than most of the non-free apps. Free is nice, but I’ve seen many false positives and misses with the free apps like AVG and Avast. Sometimes you really do get what you pay for.
The other free alternative would be to forgo the need for a/v and run an excellent and free desktop operating system like this 🙂
Heh.
I expected a half-sarcastic, general reply admonishing me for using a free A/V program, and I got a very detailed wag of the finger instead. 🙂
I’ll find something I’m sure, by the time this free protection expires.
My recommendations for your your antivirus solution should Grisoft abandon the free version of AVG…
Free: Avast Home Edition or ClamWin (only has on-demand scanning and no resident scanning)
Commercial: Nod32
Should you need one of those all-encompassing security solutions that won’t let you do anything without it freaking out and are really aimed at casual computer users without NAT routers, consider KIS or McAfee Internet Security.
Avast is decent ’cause it’s free, but it misses a lot and freaks with a lot of false postivies…it’s for total cheapskates that believe free is always the best option only. But a NAT router+Firefox+Nod32+plus knowing WTF you’re doing with these computin’ machines (routinely installing patches as they become available and such) is probably your best bet.