why i can't update from Skype ... WHAT'S GOIN ON ?????

They haven't fixed the dumass huge interface, it's too bad more "new" people are using it who seem to have no clue what they were giving up. It's Windoze Windoze Windoze crap. Just trying to accept a file transfer is a pain. I'm still using 2.8, it serves me fine.

And I do know how many stars to give it, and yes I'd knock half a star (or more) off for a function that's supposed to work and doesn't, so the previous reviewer might want to stop calling people pathetic for doing that.

I won't even begin to go into the absolute nightmare tech support is for Skype if you have an issue. I use the paid version as a phone. I have been for about 3-4 years. I went to pay my bill, and their site wouldn't accept my card because of this Verified-by-Visa garbage which I refuse to be a member of. They were sending the Transaction Data incorrectly, confirmed by my bank while on the phone with the bank and trying a payment.

I started trying to use their idiotic email-only tech support. They were simply copying and pasting answers that had absolutely ZERO to do with the issue. This went on for a week, and about 7 or 8 different reps, all never even bothering to read my original ticket.

I finally got on a live chat. The first person I talked to on there REFUSED to get me a supervisor after repeated requests, and actually IGNORED me for like 15 minutes and refused to respond. Unforgivable.

After a couple days I tried again. After a very long drawn out conversation where a sup was explaining everything about the payment process, and many things I didn't need to know, she gave up. She could not answer my question about why a perfectly good credit card didn't work on their site. At one point she even accused me of trying to use my card from a different country and telling me that was why it didn't work because my IP was different. I haven't been to another country in 15 years LOL. And it was always the same IP. She could not give an avenue to correct the issue, even when I got my bank on the phone while in the chat and tried again, and my bank confirmed that the data for payment was being sent incorrectly by Skype's payment processor! I finally had to go and open a paypal (which I abhor) account to pay my bill. I had been at least a month on these issues, had gotten bogus answers from at least 15 support reps, they should all be fired for not doing their jobs at all, they just paste whatever the hell they want to from their help site without even researching the issue at all.

Their website is REALLY HARD to navigate, and unless you have extreme patience like I do, it's almost impossible to open a regular old support ticket without first going through like 10 screens of them offering you their FAQ's and crap.

You would think a company you pay money to would have a different type of support for their paying customers than they do for their free customers. They don't. I have NEVER experienced such contemptible support from any company.

Did I say this already...their latest versions are complete WINDOZE GARBAGE that doesn't deserve to be called a Mac app. Prior to 2.8, it was acceptable and worked fine. Now it's simple bloatware with a huge interface that's not Mac-like in the least.

Please find an older version and use it. Don't support this nonsense.

I agree 100 % with Germano60, same comments, update needs fixing.

actually, I never experienced the "black&white icon" issue I see some users are reporting here.

For the rest, the apps does what it claims (or almost) and so far it's running quite smoothly and stable on my iMac.

If I don't rate it 5 stars it's because the preference item "Check for updates" is still not working, although this feature was claimed to be supported. Everytime I see a new release here on MU, I first try launching that command and everytime the reply is "You're using the latest available release" and few seconds after, if I go to Skype's site and download the software from there, I can see that actually I was *not* running the latest release. Would this glitch be fixed once for all, I'd rate this app 5 stars, based on my own experience (for what is worth).

Can anyone suggest another app that does as much as this one, and connects in as many ways from one interface?

I use it daily: I call my family on the other side of the world, text-chat and exchange files with clients, visit my family by video. That's at least three separate applications, all from one contact list. Without it, I'd have to use iChat, FaceTime, and Adium, and I still would not be able call my mother on the telephone from my computer.

If there's a more versatile app, please tell me. I'd gladly migrate.

Only gripe: Skype servers have been known to go down, disrupting my text chats in particular. But that hasn't happened in a while. It may have been a regional network issue rather than a server issue, as well.

Version 5.5.0.2069 removes the volume control! I use a headset and calls blast in at full volume. I can't figure out how to turn it down. Bad can get worse!

Note that Skype 5 drops support for FireWire webcams, including the Apple iSight webcam (built-in on MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops, and it also used to be sold separately). So unless you have an external USB webcam, upgrading to Skype 5 will result in less functionality. See http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=793315 for details.

Video does not work. Works on all other applications, Periscope, Facetime, iChat them all except Skype 5.0.0.7980

When I tried Skype 5, it was not possible to use video with my Macally webcam. Switching back to Skype 2, things worked fine. Then I realized I had disabled video in Skype 2 before I installed Skype 5 beta. So I enabled it, and when I re-installed the beta, video worked fine.

I believe that there is a preference which can be set in Skype 2, but cannot be changed in the prefs of Skype 5 beta. This pref can disable video. So if you have this problem, either temporarily downgrade to re-enable the video or try deleting the entire prefs file. Using a program to edit the prefs might also work.

I notified Skype of this bug using the link in the program, but haven't heard from them about whether they are implementing a fix.

The last version that I can successfully login to my Skype account on is 2.7.0.330. Every version since then hangs forever while trying to login. MacBook Tiger 10.4.11 with all Software Updates installed, plenty of free RAM and free disk space.