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10 of the Best VoIP Apps for Your Desktop

10 of the Best VoIP Apps for Your Desktop
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How to Use VoIP Software to Make Calls from Your PC

VoIP or Voice over Internet Protocol is part of a continuing communications revolution swiftly challenging the supremacy of the traditional landline telephone. The popularity of services such as Skype has lead to an explosion of VoIP programs, apps, and hardware that let you bypass traditional phone switching networks in favor of digitized, over-the-internet voice calls, instant messaging, and video conferencing. Its ease of use and numerous applications have seen people from all walks of life embrace VoIP systems. From business executives using telepresence and video conferencing to cut down on travel costs, to online gamers looking for an easy means of in-game communication, and far-flung families looking for a means to get in touch with distant loved ones that won't cost an arm and a leg, VoIP is an integral part of life for many.

Here are 10 VoIP apps intended for a variety of users, from those looking for a quick and easy to use service, to more technically configurable programs and tools optimized for gaming.

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  • -1 Hide
    mauller07 , August 22, 2013 4:47 AM
    i would not have given skype 4.5/5 more like 2/5, in the past few years it has become bloated and a strain on your bandwidth often causing your internet connection to grind to a halt even while just being idle in your system tray, the video calling is also a terrible bandwidth hog with poor quality and no options for changing the video quality manually to help ease the problem.

    back on its original release and for the first few years it was a brilliant light weight client with little impact on your system or bandwidth but now i could not say the same.

    the best of them on the list has to be team speak in my own opinion although it currently has no SIP calling functions for direct calling but it was never intended for that purpose.
  • 0 Hide
    Bill Lee , August 22, 2013 12:52 PM
    I agree. Skype, after the initial write-soft, is rubbish.
    Microsoft has not done it any favours in the latest configuration.

    I generally avoid it as often as possible. There are so many other, better VoIP out there, with viewable camera graphics or not.
  • 0 Hide
    gamecube , August 25, 2013 10:38 PM
    Sometimes I really don't get the score on these "the Best" articles.
  • 0 Hide
    walsh26byrne , October 7, 2013 5:59 AM
    The technology is getting advanced day by day. We can talk even <a href="http://www.m2onhold.com.au/">visualize</a> each other sitting at far of places. Even many commercial organizations are getting benefit by the same.
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