Libre alternative to skype

Here's a few options.

https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/priority-projects/free-software-replacement-for-skype

I myself use Linphone and Firefox Hello- they're both fantastic and Free Software. (Firefox Hello comes with Firefox, but works with any other modern web-browser as long as one of the users has Abrowser.)

There are plenty of free VoIP software, however, the most complete Skype (client) replacement, and the only one that works reliably, is called Jitsi. Let me know if you encounter any problem with its use.

Firefox Hello, Ekiga.

Jitsi: http://jitsi.org/
Written in Java.

Mumble: http://mumble.info/
Intended for gaming (features an overlay).

Tox: http://tox.im/
Quite promising, features several clients.

Mumble is fine for conferences and gaming, but I wouldn't consider it a "skype replacement".

"Ekiga" and "Twinkle"?

for me I use Linphone
its work on many systems and phones
I try Jitsi
but I find it completely inaccessible with orca screen reader

Firefox hello

Firefox Hello lets you make free video and voice calls directly from the browser. All you need are a microphone, a webcam (optional), and the latest version of Firefox to call friends who are on WebRTC-supported browsers like Firefox, Chrome, or Opera.

Jitsi Voice Call

Jitsi lets you communicate with friends and contacts across the Internet. Jitsi prevents eavesdropping by automatically encrypting your conversation for the full duration of its trip across the Internet (“end-to-end encryption”). This means that even your voice calling service (Google, Facebook, Jit.si, etc.) cannot listen to the contents of your call. For full details see “Limits of end-to-end encryption” below.

They are great, but when you need to get out of your internet network to dial physical landlines or cellphone it does not support it. Either you end up paying for it or no grease talk at all. That is what separates the BIG BOYS from Skype FROM THE REST,,,

Dave. Click the open menu button with the 3 horizontal lines.
At the bottom left of the menu is the customise button.
Firefox Hello is a grey smiley face in a speech bubble.
After you've dragged it to your tool bar click exit customise. Bottom left again.

now i need to try hello!

jitsi + ostel = fully and truly encrypted voip

I apologize for the late reply, I hope you may still find this post useful.

I'm currently using Pidgin and Jabber, so far it has worked out very well! File transfers are quite slow, however video and audio chatting works, although you do need to enable it: http://michael.stapelberg.de/Artikel/video_chat_with_pidgin/ However, you might not need to install any packages on your computer, try enabling the "Configure audio/video" plugin first (Tools > Plugins) to see if it works.

Any one of the servers on this list will do as long as it supports Multi-User Chat: http://www.jabberes.org/servers/ (Edit: If one of your Jabber contacts is on another server, you can add him/her to your contacts list without having to create a secondary account on that server, I've done that and it works.) Or you can use Jitsi's Jabber servers with Pidgin, however in chat rooms, you cannot initiate group file transfers, audio, or video calls. File transfers do run quite slow (about 10KB/s), however if you're patient, you can transfer a small 5MB file in about 5 minutes.

I wouldn't suggest using Jitsi as a Jabber client even though others have suggested using it because it runs under Java, and I have a few friends (one of which I used to go to school with) who have reported it slows down their computers. Pidgin, on the other hand, runs natively so it doesn't slow you down as much, and it also comes preinstalled on Trisquel, and it also has a Windows version available for your friends who don't use the GNU Operating System.

Last year in November marked one year since I stopped using Skype and deleted my account in 2013, and I have not once felt the urge to reinstall it on my computer. A few of the people on my contacts list at first hesitated to switch to Jabber with me, however once they switched over, they actually liked it!

And what was the reason I switched away from Skype? Just part of my indefinite boycott of the Microsoft monopoly.

tried firefox hello today.
very disappointing. video is slow and audio lags and stutters and mutes all the time
:(

I use Tox.
https://tox.im/
The entire point of it's creation is to be a libre, peer to peer, decentralized, replacement for Skype.

tried tox like a month ago - didn't work either :(
now i want to try the "alonsogonzales method" !!

SuperTramp83
try lin phone

I have an account on sip:name at domain; for sip, I can use linphonecd in the terminal, but rarely launch it, since I have no contacts.

did anybody here try sflphone?

http://sflphone.org/

I did an aptitude search but I see only
sflphone-daemon
sflphone-data
sflphone-evolution
sflphone-gnome
sflphone-kde

and no sflphone-gnome-video that is the gnome client with video support while sflphone-gnome is audio only..
Why is that?

Hello Firefox :-)

Well, I wonder about Mozilla using Telefonika. What kind of data retention does Telefonika make?

@Heather The good thing about Hello FF (am aware it's in fact "FF Hello") is that you don't need to register. Yet in this case, you need to send a URL to your friend (or aged father) so they can communicate with you. I haven't tried Hello FF because of possible privacy issues but I've been told it works like a charm. It's the best choice to free non-techie people from Skype in a tick.

Pidgin seems the best choice as it supports OTR and both text and video.
Ekiga is great but is a bit temperamental, according to users.

Cheers

Ekiga does it for me.

(P.S. Ekiga, SFLphone, and Jitsi are all clients for SIP, much the same way that Thunderbird, Evolution, and K-9 Mail are all E-Mail clients, so Ekiga, SFLphone, and Jitsi all use the same kind of account)

How do I GET to Firefox Hello in Abrowser? There is no icon for it in the customize section.

Enter "customize" option.