It’s been quite a while since my last post about the best free voip setup. A lot has changed. Small startup companies that I dismissed earlier now offer pretty amazing services, and other more established ones have continued to grow. Look at Skype, for instance. Although they are the most closed and proprietary of the entire group, their range, breadth, and ease of services, along with their huge (and growing) customer base, has clearly kept them on top. If my friends and family are on Skype, by default, I have to be too, even if I am “pro-SIP.”
Basically, I have Skype but only actually run it when I need to. I had been waiting for a way to call Skype users through a regular phone, and I’ve finally found one! Check out Mobivox. This is a spanking new service which allows you to call your Skype contacts through any phone. I tried it out the day it became available. I had problems connecting, but I emailed customer service, and it was working within hours. I used it, and even though still in beta, the service was very good! All I had to do was call an access number and tell the voice-activated robot which Skype contact I wanted to call. So easy it’s cheesy.

Now what do you do when the person you would like to call does NOT have a computer nor internet service? You set up yourself and that person (make an account for them) on Jajah. This is what I did to call my grandmother in Europe. We both were talking on our regular phones, but were connected through VOIP by Jajah. Amazing, and the quality is great! My grandmother couldn’t believe that such a clear long-distance call was free. You do, however, need to beware all the limitations that keep your account ‘active’. Calls are only free when you call an ‘active’ user. Gizmo is touting a similar ‘All Calls Free‘ plan, but I their limitations seemed way too stifling.

Another mover-upper is Gtalk-to-Voip. I had visited their site months ago, and saw nothing spectacular. Now I go there, and it’s like “WOW!” They have truly integrated different VOIP services (even on different protocols!) over the internet for open and free internet calling. It looks like all the major players (except Skype, of course) are included, such as GoogleTalk, Gizmo, Yahoo, SIP providers, etc. I’m very excited to explore this service further.(..thanks Yannick!)

My original favorite, Ekiga, has been making moves lately as well. With a new version out, a Windows version, and some new features, oldie-but-goodie Ekiga is still up in the running. I particularly like their new “presence” feature - you can add a button anywhere online to show your status and allow people to call you with just one click.

Previously, I discussed how we are being monitored digitally in our bedrooms as much as on the world wide web, in order for companies to ‘better target ads’ to us, their customers. Since then, there have been a few events that add to my pessimism regarding internet services (i.e. search engines), directing me to believe that they are seriously invading our privacy, or are on route to do so.

• Yahoo allegedly hands over information to Chinese authorities about an author of some politically-charged internet writings. He was subsequently charged and jailed (and tortured, probably). The Chinese couple is currently suing Yahoo.
• Google rats out YouTube TV-show uploader, who brazenly offered never-before-aired episodes of a major television show. Now Google offers a new copyright-protection tool called “Claim Your Content” for companies to easily report piracy on YouTube.
• Google is trying to weezle its way into television ads & radio advertisements as well.
• Google will soon offer GDrive, to let people backup their entire hard drives, etc, for free. It’s not enough that they control millions of people’s email, internet searches, calendars, etc, but now all their personal files as well?
• WebOS is becoming more and more of a viable future way of working on the computer. With web applications popping up every day and the world wide web becoming increasingly accessible to all, it is only a matter of time before all our computer work will be actually executed online.

Now of course, there are good things and bad things which come out of these developments. One good thing is that we will be digitally and globally connected, able to access (and work on) all our files and documents from anywhere in the world. Of course, this comes at a price: privacy. Each and every single move we make in the digital world will be logged, somewhere. And internet companies will continue to cave in to big conglomerates for fear of lawsuits (ex/piracy case vs. Youtube) as well as governments for fear of being shut out of a huge market (ex/Chinese case). Other companies will be able to target ads to us (I personally don’t like this idea, some might think it’s good), and governments all over the world will be able to get any information they want about anybody. Does that really protect us? If it does, then that protection comes at another price: freedom of speech. Just look what happened to the Chinese writer.