Hawk’s Babble-Log

I agree with this article, ban Skype from your network!

[http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/051110/to217.html?.v=15](http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/051110/to217.html?.v=15)

There are many reasons why not to use Skype, mostly having to do with security, but the only one that I care about is: Skype uses your bandwidth to route other people’s calls. This is most-often seen on networks (such as mine) with static IPs which are “always on”, such as DSLs and cable modems.

I have a few system meters running all the time on my system. These help me determine what’s going on with my system at all times. This little meter runs down in the lower right-hand corner of my system, all the time. At a glance, I can see the general state of my system. When Skype is running, my CPU usage is much higher than nornal, and my bandwidth useage goes up, even though I’m not doing anything on the net.

Once I kill Skype, all goes back to normal. This tells me that they’re right: Skype is using my bandwidth for other purposes. I don’t like that, especially when there are other projects out there which behave properly (can you say *integrity*?). Projects such as [TeamSpeak 2](http://goteamspeak.com/) and [The Gizmo Project](http://gizmoproject.com/) work very well and don’t stab you in the back.

TeamSpeak is designed for a group of people to chat, conference-style, and requires a dedicated server, as well as each participant’s client, and has a noticable delay.

Gizmo is very much like Skype, and has almost zero delay. Their support for Linux is not great at this time, but they’re workin’ on it. It works great in Windows, I ran a test with my dad using a standard headset, and it was just like speaking over the phone.

I do *not* recommend Skype, and I *do* very much recommend [The Gizmo Project](http://gizmoproject.com/).