Microsoft Rolls Out New Skype for Web; Does Not Support Firefox, Safari, and Opera (venturebeat.com) 97
Microsoft this week revamped Skype's browser-based client with a slew of new features. From a report: The Seattle company this week announced the rollout of a major Skype for Web update, which introduces high-definition video calling, a redesigned notifications panels, a revamped media gallery, and more. It's available on any PC running Windows 10 and Mac OS X 10.12 or higher with the latest versions of Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge. The bulk of the new capabilities debuted in preview last October, but they're available widely starting this week. Skype for Web does not support Safari, Firefox, and Opera browsers, Microsoft has confirmed.
Re:How to kill your own product... (Score:4, Funny)
Good thing this supports Chrome, then.
Re:How to kill your own product... (Score:5, Insightful)
That great ongoing support for all things open source... seems to have failed here. Firefox is the default browser in many Linux distributions.
So nice for Microsoft to think of themselves first, to the exclusion of anyone else.
And so you twits that have succumbed to the great haze of Microsoft's support of open source, know that it's only capitulation to FOSS, and not actually ascribing to the culture of the communities of FOSS.
Embrace, extend, extinguish is still their DNA. If they really wanted to make headway, they'd make Skype an API and spawn lots of products made from its bones, so as to curtail advances from Google, FB, and other international social media competition.
There are MBAs in Redmond that truly don't understand how to make dough in FOSS, understand how to bring markets to their fore through transformative yet open infrastructure. Same old song and dance.
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So nice for Microsoft to think of themselves first, to the exclusion of anyone else.
Microsoft is the new Apple
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IMHO, the two have had similar aims for decades. Lip service to FOSS, a huge competitor, hasn't done either well. MacOS has more "free" DNA than Windows (although Microsoft borrowed heavily from BSD licenses throughout their life), but yeah.
Beware the Reality Distortion Fields, folks!
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No they arn't. At least Apple's products are pretty and, provided you stay within the cage they put you in, usually works.
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Or... those browsers don't support a required API
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No one has revealed the answer to the question-- is that required API proprietary, or did Microsoft make the details available, or help port it to a neutral spot, or make it available in binary forms, etc? I don't know that answer to that. A community-focused vendor lifts the community, and yes, themselves. Red Hat is pretty good (although not perfect) at doing this for API kits.
It's a state of mind, rather than wallet. With so many interesting and potentially useful code contributions, the casual observer
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Is it really a web based product if you need a special API to run it.
If it is an HTML feature, that these other browsers haven't implemented yet, then that is a different issue.
The issue I have with JavaApplets, Active X, Flash, Sliverlight... is the fact these are not web apps, but executable that just happen run in your browser window.
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It's Electron. Which is a headless Chromium that runs as an application; Discord also uses it and it's not a terrible idea, but I bet a lot of money it's just Microsoft playing coy, Discord works on Firefox just fine, even voice and video chat, but I think only Screenshare server is Discord app only.
Proof: https://electronjs.org/apps/sk... [electronjs.org] https://electronjs.org/apps/di... [electronjs.org] (screen sharing is app only as it says on the bottom green box but everything else works fine) https://support.discordapp.com... [discordapp.com]
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After testing in Firefox, video chat doesn't work, voice chat does in Discord on Firefox
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>
So nice for Microsoft to think of themselves first, to the exclusion of anyone else.
They are a for profit company, what do you expect?
Embrace, extend, extinguish is still their DNA. If they really wanted to make headway, they'd make Skype an API and spawn lots of products made from its bones, so as to curtail advances from Google, FB, and other international social media competition.
The question is "what is in it for them?" if they did such a thing? They'd handle a lot more calls for free and give other companies potentially a lot of data on calling patterns that they get to keep right now.
There are MBAs in Redmond that truly don't understand how to make dough in FOSS, understand how to bring markets to their fore through transformative yet open infrastructure.
More to the point, why should they care about FOSS except how it benefits them? They're making a lot of money as is, and using FOSS when it is useful, so why bother chase a market where they have to share everything and try to compete on services whe
Re:How to kill your own product... (Score:4, Interesting)
Your understanding of FOSS is typical, and it's pretty myopic. This context doesn't allow you to understand that there are motives in FOSS beyond pecuniary interest. It's not a business model. If you can wrap your head around that fact, and get it out of your wallet, you can get closer to the actual context.
What's-in-it-for-me is a natural desire. How-can-I-help is a more evolved thought process. You can make money both ways.
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So nice for Microsoft to think of themselves first, to the exclusion of anyone else.
You, me, and virtually everyone else think of themselves first. Many then CHOOSE to act on behalf of others. As for excluding everyone else...WTF are you talking about? Skype is available as a DEB, RPM, or SNAP [skype.com] install for Linux. Does it suck that Microsoft has chosen to implement non-standards based features that break compatibility with standards based browsers? Yes, yes it does. But Microsoft has been doing that for decades so it should come as no surprise. And Google is doing it as well.
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That great ongoing support for all things open source... seems to have failed here. Firefox is the default browser in many Linux distributions.
This is not the fault of Microsoft, but the fault of each browser dealing with script and even standard HTML in some annoying different way.
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So nice for Microsoft to think of themselves first, to the exclusion of anyone else.
They didn't think of themselves first though. I've now heard from two family members who use Skype (they're old, and all their equally old friends use it too), and am reliably informed that the updated Skype doesn't support Windows either. Argh, now I've got to go round and find "Skype Classic" on some dodgy Russian site and reinstall the version that mostly worked for them.
They built and released ReactXP just for Skype (Score:2)
I dunno, I've been doing linux since the slackware days, and I remember when Microsoft was astride the world, bullying everyone.
In this case, for Skype specifically the underlying tech is ReactXP https://github.com/microsoft/r... [github.com] (which just takes react-native and extends it to the web) and is not just open source but pretty righteously herded by Eric Traut on github with respect and fast merging of contributions on a valuable project.
I'm having a hard time feeling indignant about the behavior here, rather
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The original Java-based Minecraft, the only one which works on Linux desktops, is currently the only one which cannot interoperate with handheld and XBox players...
You're forgetting the PS3, Vita and PS4 versions, which also aren't the Bedrock the edition and can't interact with Switch, mobile and Xbox versions.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, they altered the UI for Bedrock so it's not quite as good as the "classic console edition" in regards to UI.
What does skype do that webTRC doesn't? (Score:5, Interesting)
I stopped using skype since webRTC became built into browsers. no apps to install, works reliably. Works on more devices than skype.
The best part is that when you have an ad hoc group of people who suddenly need to chat you don't have any dely with people installing an application then coaxing it to work, signing up for a microsoft account etc... Installing all the other spy ware microsoft forces you to install with it.
And while not every webRTC provider is equally good, and bug free, there are some very good ones, and that's all you need. I like appear.in
The downer for me is that my employer blocks webRTC ports forcing the use of skype. ugg.
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Last I checked with WebRTC, it wasn't supported by Verizon's FIOS in my area. And it is a no-go at work.
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None other than the browser! just got to appear.in and try it.
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I don't know what software package they use, but there's a good chance that they were talking about the great (and FOSS) nothing-to-install* WebRTC group chat solution from Jitsi:
https://meet.jit.si/ [meet.jit.si]
* you'll need to install a browser plugin if you want to share your screen, but that's mainly to allow an out-of-sandbox exemption to the browser.
Ditto (Score:2)
webRTC is free, works well, and many sites require no login to use it. You just send people the link, and it works. And I could run my own server if I wanted to.
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Plus its weird that Opera isn't support since that is practically Chrome.
Chrome support at least makes sense (Score:2)
MS has destroyed Edge/Trident so badly that they're moving toward a chromium based Edge.
Is this good for the Chromium project? Microsoft programmers will be looking at the code.
Is this bad for the Chromium project? Microsoft programmers will be looking at the code.
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I really am curious to see who wins Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon. Who will control the future tech?
IBM?
Sinclair will re-emerge from the ashes and defeat them all.
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No way. In 2031, everyone uses Timex. Computers, phones, tablets, watches, glasses.
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Nah, Atari's gonna make the big comeback. By 2035 we'll all be using mutant 128-core Atari ATW transputer workstations.
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The Chrome Overlord (Score:5, Interesting)
So much for open web standards, privacy, and freedom of choice and platform. The march back to the days of IE are progressing so well. I am sure Google is very pleased, indeed.
I don't know about you, but I will continue to fight it. If a site doesn't at least work on Firefox, it is BROKEN.
Re:The Chrome Overlord (Score:4, Interesting)
It doesn't even support Windows 8.1 or below fully.
Apparently it doesn't support other browsers because it needs a plug-in that uses the Chrome/Edge architecture. They didn't make one for Firefox.
So actually it's useless for me too, because even though I use Chrome I'm not installing their plug-in.
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>"Apparently it doesn't support other browsers because it needs a plug-in that uses the Chrome/Edge architecture. They didn't make one for Firefox."
Yeesh, that is just as bad or worse. So now it not only doesn't use available web technologies and is not browser independent, it also bloats the browser, contaminates it with unknown "stuff", creates more possible security issues, and certainly will not support "alternative" operating systems like Linux.
Yeah, it is like IE-only days in more than one way.
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>"In WebRTC case, it is Firefox that is broken: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/s... [mozilla.org]"
Mozilla has been waiting for the correct 1.1 standards before fixing/coding something to something that was already dead and not working well. Besides, this is not the reason for the vast majority of "Chrome Only" sites starting to appear.
Calling standards (Score:2)
So much for open web standards,
Unlike Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome D - OES NOT support ORTC (Microsoft's NIH-syndrom variation upon webRTC) - well yet (the plan is for ORTC eventually to be reworked into WebRTC 1.1 at which point both Chrome AND Firefox will support it).
Which means that if the current Skype for Web works in Google Chrome :
- either Microsoft has released a special binary plug-in for Google to support their calling protocol.
(It doesn't seem to be the case, at least with my quick testing Chrome doesn't seem to ask
Re: Calling standards (Score:2)
Google very much cares about chrome. Chrome, especially when you have syncing enabled, sends a huge amount of data about your web usage back to google. That data is worth a huge amount of money to them.
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Google absolutely does care about the control over the Web that Chrome brings.
Chrome is the new IE (Score:5, Informative)
This article warrants reposting here:
https://www.theverge.com/2018/... [theverge.com]
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The article is wrong though, IE was a problem because it did a bunch of random shit that wasn't a standard or was entirely proprietary like ActiveX. Chrome to date has not done this, however the issue is that developers don't bother to test anything else. Microsoft & Apple have made their own bed there as they don't have easy ways of using them in automated tests (e.g. no selenium docker image) and both are significantly slower than Firefox & Chrome at implementing new features.
The other odd thing t
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" IE was a problem because it did a bunch of random shit that wasn't a standard or was entirely proprietary"
just like Chrome
https://developer.chrome.com/a... [chrome.com]
there wouldn't be a distinction between the differing browsers if they were universal, like it or not Chrome is the new IE its just a shame that dickwad n00b developers chose to standardize on one made by a fucking NYSE listed surveillance company.
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What exactly do you mean by "freetard"? It's not in Merriam-Webster's dictionary.
Embracing and Extending through Chrome (Score:2)
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Don't you mean how much time and money did they save by only supporting their browser and the most popular browser? Where edge the most popular then chances are it would be the only one supported.
Creeping Featurism (Score:2)
I wonder if this new version will work on my Win7 machine, since it doesn't have cortana installed (TFA says that's one of the reasons for the update).
There is nothing in the update that aids in doing what I used to use skype for - multiple text conversations, and some voice calling. Cortana integration? When I still played with Win10 systems, that was one of the things I worked hard to block. HD video calls? I removed the camera from my computer because skype kept trying to turn it on, and I don't want to
Issue about this on webcompat (Score:4, Informative)
I went to file this on webcompat.com, but it looks like it's already been filed as #27392.
View on webcompat [webcompat.com] | View on Microsoft GitHub [github.com]
Consider it innovation (Score:4, Insightful)
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The Microsoft we all knew & loved is back... (Score:2)
Safari and Opera I can understand... (Score:1)
WRONG: Supports Firefox, not Chrome (Score:1)
When I logged in using Chromium on my Linux system, the "Call" button was greyed out. It always worked in the previous versions, but now it suddenly didn't - nice of Microsoft not to warn me about this and making me find out the hard way as I was about to start an important business call.
Talk about failing silently with no information on the website why or how to fix the problem. So what worked? Logging in using Firefox with the user-agent changed to Windows/Edge. And the "Call" button came back!
Frankly, I
Slack (Score:2)
Opera (Score:4, Insightful)
How does it *NOT* support Opera? It is literally the same codebase as Chrome (both Blink/Chromium based), the same thing the new Edge is being based on. This means they're checking user agents, and denying ones they don't like. This is 2019, not 1999. STOP THIS SHIT RIGHT NOW.
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You've never had to support multiple browsers, have you! Opera might indeed be based on the same source code. That doesn't guarantee compatibility. You KNOW that didn't just leave it alone.
The degree to which any Web site supports any particular browser, is the degree to which the builder of the site TESTS on that browser. Period.
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Or maybe it is exactly as I stated. It is already being reported that simply using a user agent spoofer with both Firefox and Opera allow Skype to function just fine. Microsoft is intentionally blocking other browsers for the wrong reasons. Even more interested, Microsoft is NOT blocking the Vivaldi browser, which is also Chromium, just like Opera.
Wait, someone uses Edge? (Score:2)
It's available on any PC running Windows 10 ... with the latest versions of Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge.
Was that latest Chrome+Windows Zero-Day flaw [slashdot.org] allowing Web Skype to run on Windows 7 and/or with other browsers?
They are not unsupported, they are blocked! (Score:2)
I've been using Preview Web Skipe on Firefox (actually Waterfox) for a few months now.
All you need is to use "User Agent Switcher" and to pretend to be Chrome.
I don't use it to make calls, just occasional chat. So far I have not encountered any kind of problem or issues.
Given the rumors that you need special Chrome plugin for the voice and video calls, there is absolutely no reason to oust FF or Opera.
Microsoft are deliberately blocking these browsers.
same old tricks (Score:2)
how MS has changed, it's not the same company it was 10 years ago!
riiiiiiiight...