BleepingComputer.com: Anyone know of Skype?

A friend has recommended Skype to me. He as it turns your computer into another phone (or that's what I thought he said). Always eager for a bargain (and with two teenage daughters it seemed a way of possibly keeping the home line open more frequently) I went to their website. The only thing that worries me is that it describes itself as a P2P.... is this like Kazaa and will I be opening up my computer to all the crapware that I've just freed my computer from?

Anybody's advice would be much appreciated. Thanks !

Just make sure that u do not get Kazaa with it. I think that it is possible to d/l Skype by itself. And as always read the end user license agreement. I am a little wary of it since it is is.....

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My personal opinion is that I'd steer clear of it.

This post has been edited by scarlett: 12 December 2004 - 10:54 AM

Consider the source. Any program even remotely P2P should be avoided. If your daughters want to chat, there are many instant messengers (MSN or Yahoo come to mind) that they can use to "talk" with their friends.
Cheers,
John

If Lulabelle (lovely name!) is on BT Broadband she can have a years free phone calls if she is quick to register.

Skpe has had some good reviews, I'm not sure I would put it in the same class as Kazaa for P2P file swapping, can 42 million downloads all be dodgy?

I just wouldn't want to d/l anything even remotely related to Kazaa. Skype is created by the makers of Kazza. When one d/l's the duo (Kazaa/Skype) they will be infested with a mindboggling amount of spyware. As one reporter found 2,000 and some odd traces, via Pest Patrol. Also Gator and Gain and one other ( I can't recall) have been given the source code.

This post has been edited by scarlett: 12 December 2004 - 11:21 AM

As I have just discovered. I withdraw my previous positive remarks.

Hey thats cool Supermart57 A lively discussion is always needed to get to the bottom of things.

Elsewhere in the Discussions forum there is a link to;

www.sans.org/top20/#w7

describing P2P. I thought it was worth repeating here it makes intersting reading.

I've been useing Skype a bit. Havn't yet made up my mind about it, but there are a few points I can make.

Compared to MSN or Yahoo the sound quality is clearly better, which is something. Ease of use, functionality and so on I havn't made up my mind about yet (big parts of the program I have yet to touch).

Calls from computer to computer are free, of course, but to call a ordinary phone you have to buy some SkypeOut credit to call with. The rate varies but to make things a bit easier they hav a global rate for the most common places (Argentina (Buenos Aires), Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Canada (mobiles), Chile, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico (Mexico City, Monterrey), Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Russia (Moscow, St. Petersburg), Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States (except Alaska and Hawaii), United States (mobiles) and Vatican, but no Finland ), which is 0.017 € or 0.02 $. Other places are as a rule more expensive. As far as I know you can't call Skype from an phone.

As for the security side of things... Well it has during the past year had two (opposed to Firefox's four, with the highes as moderately critical) security advisories, of which secunia rated one Highly critical, but both have been patched, so its 2/2. The security for the communication is encrypted, and I know of no-one who has managed to listen in on a call, but then again I know of no-one who has tried, 0/0. The files you transfered aren't any more secure than with any other instant messenger. Ther have been no viruses for Skype but if it's because nobody has managed to make one or merely for lack of trying I don't know.

If you download only Skype you get no spyware or adware that I've found. And yes, I've been looking.

Considering Skype is planning to conqure the corporate world, they have to think about security. The intresting part, to me at least, is when (if) Skpye shows up on PDAs and smart phones.

Well, is Skype something? Might be. It's not Kazaa, at least, even if the founders are the same.

so now three years on from the last post what is your opinion of skype? I have downloaded it and have got it running because my girlfriend uses it to talk to her family. So far she's had no problems and has even made friends from it.

I however seem to have ongoing problems from spyware. Is it coincidence? Should I now be deleting skype four days on and going back to msn?

Skype appears to be interesting if you want to talk to sex crazed freaks from UAE or the ukraine who like to show me a bit more than I am really interested in. Why do blokes seems to think that all girls on the internet are interested in talking about their sex lives or looking at their bleepes? some of us really are not that interested but it makes the internet a very cheap place instead of the great resource to talk to people it could be.

Interested in what others think?

I've been using Skype now for three years without any problems. It is now the only VoIP/IM solution I am using. You can tell Skype to only accept calls from people on your Contact List.

There are some Skype worms (as there is on MSN and Yahoo as well) but they require that you click on a link in a instant message.

For help in spyware removal you can turn to our Hijackthis Forum.

yeah skype has great opportinuties for now.
also i got skypecap which captures audio and video sessions while you are skyping. +)

Hello

Further to the last post I made I have now lost the use of my laptop while I sit and reformat it.

We ran the spyware/adware oriention guide mentioned in your previous post but despite doing everything mention we were still being hi jacked.

I am so feed up with spyware/adware I gone over to the dark side and started using linux. It was a bit too coincidental that the problems only started when I started using skype. Interested to see what others think?

Did you post a hijackthis log?

There are only two ways to get malware over Skype. 1) Somebody sends you a link in an instant message and you click on the link and it takes you to a page which downloads malware. 2) Somebody sends you a file which you then open, and it installs malware. Both require that you yourself actually tell the malware to start by clicking the link or the file. Besides, there are something like 170 000 000 users of Skype. If it was surreptitiously installing malware I think we would have heard more about it. Sometimes a coincidence is just that, a coincidence.

i`m just chatting only with my real friends....
i dont htink its too dangerous...