Free and Open Source alternatives to Skype VoIP

Submitted by William on February 6, 2012 - 04:52

There is no doubt that Skype is today the most popular VoIP software around. Thanks to the ease of installation and setup, the diversity of offers, the availability in several platforms and marketing, Skype was able to become the most used software for VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), video conferencing, instant messaging and computer-to-phone calling (softphone). The success of Skype caught the attention of big corporations and was (not so) recently acquired by Microsoft for 8,5 billion dollars (!).

 

If you feel like you deserve something Free and Open Source to do the task, keep reading, this article will help you to replace Skype. In fact, there are many high-quality and low-cost alternatives out there that provide, not only equal, but better and cheaper services while respecting your privacy and freedom. Keep in mind that they are NOT Skype and they need you to get familiar with them before you can experience all the joys of FOSS telephony. Just grab a cup of your favourite beverage and get ready for testing some of these alternatives.

 

If you don't want to test options and just want to go directly down to business follow this video tutorial:

Download Jitsi

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Quick installation:

 

A – Download Jitsi
B – Register at Diamondcard.us if you want to call telephones
D – Open Jitsi, go to File>Add new account>XMPP>Create new account and/or add the SIP account from Diamondcard
E – Type an XMPP/Jabber address of someone you know or type country-code-phone-number to call regular phones (and select the appropriate address you want to call from.

To have a little bit more details, read the long version on the following page.

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Comments

Submitted by voip service on July 5, 2012 - 07:48.
Voip is one technology which has completely changed telephony system works. Now business do not need to spend high dollar price to enjoy advance telephone system features.

Submitted by pablo on July 5, 2012 - 20:01.
Very fine write up. Congratulations and much gratitude. If I may offer a suggestion, if you could illustrate the configuration of the SIP accounts and logging in, etc., for example, by including a screenshot, that would be helpful for people like me.

Submitted by William on July 7, 2012 - 18:27.
Thank you for the suggestion, I'll definitely do that!

Submitted by Cliff on May 13, 2013 - 13:06.
Its about time there is a decent alternative to skype. If im honest I think that skype can be a bit laggy. I have been using Fring recently and it seems to be much smoother than Skype. I have never tried jitsi but I will give it a go! Cheers Cliff www.intergroup.co.uk

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