Is there a way to connect to Skype IM through Libre software?

You can't use Skype with free software.
You should try and get your friends to migrate to Telegram-- it's the most user-friendly free software IM service. (http://telegram.org)

You may want to try this Pidgin plugin that goes through the Skype web client (without executing any of the javascript, of course). It is GPLv3. It works acceptably for me (I don't like Skype, but I know people who do...) but as always your mileage may vary.

https://github.com/EionRobb/skype4pidgin/tree/master/skypeweb

Sorry to post on an old topic. I just figured that I should give an update on my experiences along with the solution that my friend and I settled on in case any other users have the same or a similar problem down the road.

I started off with looking into using the suggestions given already (thank you again, JadedCtrl, tomlukeywood and Adrian Malacoda).

I managed to get Telegram to work fine on my end, but my friend doesn't have a phone number that he could use to sign up with.

Mumble is a really great program that is especially awesome for talking while gaming, but my propriety using friend couldn't figure out the interface or how to connect to a public server and the right room. I also don't currently have the money or resources to get a private server set up.

As for the Pidgin plug-in, I simply cannot get it to work. I might have been doing something wrong or looking for the wrong files, but it's all okay because we ended up getting SIP to work with Jitsi.

How we managed this was:

We both signed up on iptel [dot] org, installed Jitsi from the Jitsi website, and signed in using the SIP account login. To sign in, put your iptel user name and password into the SIP option on the screen that pops up the first time that you open Jitsi.

You can also add the account under the File menu by clicking "Add new account..." and selecting iptel [dot] org from the drop-down menu. Alternatively, you can sign in with one of the other services offered in this drop-down menu.

One final note that needs to be made, though, is that the Jitsi application in the Trisquel repos did not work for me. At the time of my writing this, it is version 2.4.something and will constantly crash whenever you try to use it.

To get the version that worked, I went to jitsi [dot] org, clicked on the "Download" link, followed by clicking on the "Ubuntu Packages" link under the stable releases. This will actually take you to the same packages as Debian where after a little scrolling you will find .deb packages labeled something along the lines of "jitsi_2.8.5426-1_amd64.deb."

Make sure you get the right one for your OS. To find out which package that you need click on the Trisquel logo then click on "System Settings," and "Details." Under the "Overview" section you should be able to find "OS type" followed by either 32-bit or 64-bit depending on what you have installed.

If you have 32-bit then you need the end of the file name to be "i386.deb." If you have 64-bit, then you need the end of the file name to be "amd64.deb."

Download the newest stable release with your correct suffix, and then use gdebi to install it. If you need gdebi, then you can find it by searching in the "Add/Remove Applications" program under the main Trisquel menu (the one that you open by clicking the Trisquel logo).

And that is it. I want to throw one more thank-you at the end of this for the help offered by other members of the forum. I hope that this follow-up post ends up being of some use to someone in the future who also wants to talk to friends/family/people they know who use proprietary operating systems. My friend and I have used and continue to use this solution to voice chat and IM each other without any problems.

-Don

'what about firefox hello???