SIP VoIP

[Mortis]

Time for some new geek juice! I'm searching for an (preferably open source) alternative to Skype, which has been bloated to death. SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) is often utilized to create VoIP calls so that's the protocol I've been looking at. So far Okay I think my favourite is Linphone because it's a SIP-only client; No instant messaging features bloating the situation. The Windows build is lagging behind, but it seems to work.

The reason I'm looking at a small, SIP-only program is because I utilize Miranda for other IM needs; It has two SIP plugins and one Google Talk voice plugin, but none of them have reached real usability so far. That would naturally be my first choice.

There are quite a few other alternatives, too:

• OpenWengo - Much like Gizmo, but open source
• GizmoProject - Much like Wengo, but closed source
• zap! - A very strange Mozilla-core based client which is really too hard to use.
• Ekiga - Just not a very attractive choice

Non-SIP alternatives (apart from TeamSpeak and Ventrilo):

• Mumble

Question: Whatever happened to PhoneGaim? Answer: You can get a strange installer from http://sipphone.com/phonegaim/.

[Mortis]

Okay, I ran into some really serious bull today; Linphone works as it's supposed to, which is great, but comes packaged with the (apparently SIP-inherent) dilemma of too low a call volume and was thus unusable in gaming use...

My next thought was, "So... why not get an old version of Skype? The old versions weren't so bad!"

Guess what! You can't use most of the old releases. Version 1.3.0.41 is the first one you can install if you wish.

This curve here is how my frustration with Skype has gone upwards:



How is it possible for the installer size to go from 2,5mb to 22,7mb?

[Smeagol]

For gaming use, i used Roger Wilco in the days, worked pretty good i recall...

[Mortis]

Yeah Roger Wilco was great - up until it was bought out by GameSpy xD We (=Terga and our local lans) used it "back then" (In the great 1990s!) as well.

I'm scarred for life by the whole GameSpy deal, to be honest; Back when we started on halflife.net with KAC/FKAC it was the best Half-Life -related site on the net. When GameSpy bought them out that seemed like the beginning of the end, but it only got worse after the IGN buyout. Man.

Anyway. To give you guys an update, I'm currently running an interesting combination of Skype 1.3.0.41 with an appropriate plugin for Miranda; The plugin can control Skype granted you run it in the background. It seems like a hollow victory but in practice this deal works surprisingly well.

[nobile]

at work we use this program called x-lite, it's not quite open source, but for non-geeky users it's pretty handy, since has the looks of a telephone
It used to be a buy-only program, but the company decided to make it free and just create a sleekier program and charge for that one ;P http://www.counterpath.com/xlitedownload.html

[Mortis]

Man, the interfaces to some VoIP programs are ghastly.

[nobile]

haha