[Info] Skype. Is it ready to take over?

This Friday one of my friend suddenly pop-up with an interesting Q. "Got a Skype?", off course I said "No! And what the heck was it for?" and this successfully made me one of those old-timer, really! Since the first one came up in my mind after the Q was a a tool for having a phone-like call via the net or VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) to the regular phone line. Plus, we have to buy some credit to do the call. Never in my mind had I imagined that this tool evolved into some kind of user-killer software that can be a threat to YM in the internet relay chat software competition.
After some browse of the net to help me out from my cluelessness, I did find out it really is happening. Let's have some quote on what other have said:

• Kualitas suaranya hampir sama dengan menggunakan telepon. Bedanya kalau telepon saya tidak didepan komputer, sedangkan dengan skype saya bisa lansung melihat apa yang sedang dibicarakan, atau ditanyakan karena sama sama berada didepan komputer. (http://kerjakeras.com/chatting-dengan-skype-vs-yahoo-messenger/)

• Secara garis besar Skype lebih unggul dibandingkan software lainnya dalam hal kualitas suara pada voice call. Selain tersedia versi Linux, Skype juga menyimpan call & chat history secara otomatis. (http://akatelsp.ac.id/2009/01/07/infokom/manfaat-skype/)

• It doesn't attempt to take over your computer when you install it; Setup is easy; Sound quality is great; All of the above could be said about Skype 18 months ago (the post dated back on Oct. 10, 2005). (http://www.techzonez.com/forums/showpost.php?s=ca8d238d967170c7515fef41acec438e&p=105428&postcount=8)

• Yahoo is trying to do too much in one Messenger tool. Messenger is now too powerful, heavy and overloaded. As I rarely use instant messaging, I just want a tool to make phone calls and maybe chat occasionally, Skype is the superior software if you are just making phone calls; Skype has a Linux version. To the best of my knowledge Yahoo Voice has no Linux option. (http://www.harshadoak.com/2006/09/internet/skype-out-vs-yahoo-voice-service-review-and-comparison.html)

Well...those are the comments. Overall, they seems to be agreed that Skype has better quality on the voice call feature over YM. That's not so surprising though, seeing that Skype was started for making a cheap long-distant voice-call solution.

If you wanna know what aunty Wiki has to say about this Skype, please visit her @ her home here http://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype.

Those are what I came-up with from the net, but personally I think that I'll stick to the old-glorious Yahoo! Messenger for now because I'm a typing type rather than a talky one *hehehe* Still, the choice is yours...

Finally, for those who having trouble downloading the latest Skype for windows software, I've made some mirror here and the other alternative here. Both files are packed with RAR format and have to be extracted first with either WinRAR or other RAR applications. If you don't have one, you can get WinRAR v3.51 here.