Skype: be afraid: Corante > Get Real >

Why is Corante permanently broken? The comments forms don't work. The RSS is screwy. The site is slow.

Anyway here's a comment to the above article in response to a whole load of misinformation.

Let's try and get this right and get at the truth, please. There's a few too many half truths and "a competitor told me" stories in here.

- If you stop an app and then uninstall it there is *no way* it could still be using resources, tcp sockets or connections. The only possibility is that it left behind a trojan or other malware. There has never been any suggestion that Skype does this. if it's failing to uninstall correectly, then that's a bug. I'm sure they'd love to hear the details.

- If you're behind a firewall, you have a NATed IP address and you don't have large numbers of ports forwarded to your machine on your internet faceing router, there is no way Skype is going to make you a supernode. So any traffic is about your copy of Skype doing what it does in terms of displaying presence information and handling voice and chat calls. If you don't like it, sure uninstall.

- *If* you are a full peer in the internet, then Skype *may* make you a supernode. In some circumstances, this can generate large numbers of connections which *may* cause your machine or router problems. You may also end up passing < 5KBps of switching traffic. You will *not* be passing other people's voice calls.

I've got no connection with Skype beyond being a happy user who relishes the shake up they're giving the Telcos and IM companies. The detail above is true to the best of my knowledge and has been gleaned from scanning the Skype forums and talking to Skype specialists. If it's wrong, tell me.


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[ 19-May-05 6:36pm ] [ , ]