Alternatives to Skype

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Joined
11 Dec 2003
Posts
599
Location
London
Are there any?

I'm trying to set up free (or as close to) voice comms for my father in London & my sister in Paris. I'd suggest a cheapo phone service but she's moved address and no longer has a landline. Mobiles are prohibitively expensive, but it’s what they’ve fallen back on.

I'm reluctant to go down the Skype route as they ripped off my dad the last time I helped set an up account , and also because the software seems so clunky and omnipresent in the OS.

I notice Google have a video/voicechat Gmail plugin but according to my sister it's unavailable to mac users.

So I’m after anything really that will do


UK PC Platform (Win 7) <--> France Mac Platform (not sure but pre OS X)​


Just occured to me as I'm writing this, what about TeamSpeak (a gaming voicecomms app)? S’pose you need a server - ages since I've used it, can barely remember what's involved....
 
Yes Teamspeak3 will work, you could run the server software on your local machine.

If it's pre-OSX then you'll find it hard to get new software to work. Certainly if it's MacOS v8/v9 then it it will be extremely difficult - OSX came out in 2001. Majority of software is now Intel rather than PowerPC too. To be honest I don't think your sister is using pre-OSX (ie pre 10.0 'cheetah') but is probably running a powerbook with panther (10.3)?

It's probably cheaper to buy a new machine.. most laptops have inbuilt webcams in the lids now. If she's a mac person then you could find a secondhand intel macbook to keep a similar look and feel? Perfect excuse for her to get a MBA :)
 
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