Skype alternative?

[tomasz86]

Does anyone know any good Skype alternative?

I've used Skype for years but after it was sold to M$ everything has been getting worse and worse. The Windows client is not that bad (although bloated) but the Android client is just horrible. Previous versions, although buggy, were usable but the current one is a complete junk:

1. Video doesn't work correctly (it seems to be working on my Android device but the other person can see only a black screen in the desktop version).
   
2. Portrait mode doesn't work any more it was very useful for typing in the chat window.
   
3. The volume control mode has changed. I don't know the proper names for this but before you could adjust the volume as in any other music application so you were able to make it very low or just turn it off by pressing the volume down button. Now it uses the "phone mode" which means that you can't turn it off by reducing the volume level and, what's much more important, you can't make it low enough! Even on the lowest settings it's still way too loud for me.
   

What's even more, M$ blocked older versions of Skype for Android from working. In other words, you can no longer log in in them and you're forced to upgrade to the newest one (fortunately in Windows you can still use the last unbloated version, i.e. v4.2).

Anyway, I'm looking for an alternative which would work in Windows and Android. Apart from standard voice / video chatting I'd also like to be able to make (paid) phone calls as you can do in Skype. Is there any software which could easily replace Skype in this kind of usage?

[Win2k3EE]

5 skype alternatives: http://www.cmswire.com/cms/enterprise-20/5-great-skype-alternatives-011315.php

[tomasz86]

I've done a standard Google search

I'd like to hear some opinions from people who actually use such applications, especially concerning the fact that I'm also going to pay for some services like phone calls.

[Guest]

Calling in Gmail? aka Google Voice

[tomasz86]

I've checked several alternatives but none of them seemed to be able to fully replace Skype on all my devices (PC, phone, tablet) so I'm still using Skype at the moment but I've managed to find this custom modification for Android:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1148708

and it's way better than the official version.

[Tommy]

I use Google Talk to talk to my fiancee at times, but unless you install a plugin and I think use the web application, you can't make video calls. But if you're doing just voice, I love Gtalk much better than Skype. Skype is just bulky and I don't appreciate how they fill them with ads now.

[tomasz86]

The problem is that I need something which works both in Windows and Android (phone & tablet). I've found plenty of voice talk applications for Android but all of them were asking for my phone number on start which hasn't got any sense when run on a tablet with no built-in phone Skype doesn't do it and the modified version which I gave a link to above seems to be working surprisingly well - no lags or other bugs so common in the official version.

Edited February 1, 2013 by tomasz86