Oh great, now skype can crash my computer and hog my bandwidth.

When will people realise yahoo and msn have been doing this for donkey's years? skype who? and why?

I've been using Skype on a full-time basis for all my long distance and as my IM since April and I've yet to experience any problems with it. I've only had one phone call in which the connection wasn't acceptable.

It's really cheap long distance too. We have spent less on long distance phone calls since we started using Skype than we spent in an average month before we started using it. I've purchased $60 worth of time since April and we currently have more than $10 worth of long distance time available. Our phone bills have never been so low.

The skype international rates are very high. Call quality on international calls is abismal, in my experience. As an IM/voice chat client, yahoo had it beaten 5 years ago.

I too have used Yahoo and MSN for voice and video calls to my friends and family in England. IMHO there is no comparison with Skype, the quality of Skype calls as far as clarity and frequency response are concerned is staggeringly good. It beats the POTS hands down.

The Skype International rates are dirt cheap Arisen, you must be mis-reading their site.

No, not mis-reading. Some international rates are good, to USA, europe, australia etc. Other international destinations however, are not so cheap. I get better rates using calling card companies to one of these destinations.

However, i just installed the new version of skype, and have used it tonight for an hour long international call that cost me around £8 ($14 US/$19 Australian). Didn't crash on me this time. Call quality was pretty good.

Ok i'll let them off this time

skype video has msn and yahoo beat hands down too
floating window, full screen, good quality, its great