Now, few people do not know about such a thing as Skype. This technology has become so firmly established in our lives that sometimes we don’t even try to understand how it works? Do you need to tell your family about urgent news or ask a specialist friend for advice, or just chat, what do we do in this case? That's right, we open the Internet, look for the person we need and write him a message. But is this form of communication convenient? Of course not! For your convenience, the Skype program was created.

But let's try to figure out what it is? Where can I find this program and how can I install it? We will find out everything if we read the article to the end.

People have learned to use the Internet to communicate at a distance for a very long time. But only one program made it really convenient and simple - Skype. She allowed not only to correspond via SMS, but also to make calls, like by phone and even transmit video.

Skype (or Skype) is a great, completely free program that is very convenient to use when communicating via the Internet with your colleagues, friends, relatives around the world. The program was developed by the company skype limited.

The program allows you to do the following:
Make individual correspondence, exchange messages with friends and relatives, just like in other programs such as ICQ, QIP or Agent.
If you have a microphone and headphones (or speakers), you can call a friend from a neighboring entrance, city or country and just talk as if you were talking on the phone. Of course, provided that he (or she) also has Skype installed.
If you have a webcam, a microphone and headphones (or speakers), then you can conduct a video conference, see the interlocutor, hear him and answer, you can say this is a video phone.

To summarize the above, the program works in three modes:
Chat live text messaging. You type what you want to say and get an instant response. It's kind of like text messaging.
call- voice communication, that is, the same as by telephone. You hear the interlocutor and he hears you. This will require a microphone, headphones or speakers, as well as a fairly fast Internet connection. Modern laptops, tablets and smartphones usually have both a microphone and speakers.
Video call- voice communication + video broadcasting. You both hear the interlocutor and see him. To do this, you need to have a special camera. It's called a webcam

Webcam (also webcam) - a small digital video or photo camera capable of capturing images in real time for further transmission over the Internet (in programs such as Skype, Instant Messenger or any other video application).

And built into every modern laptop, tablet or smartphone. For a personal computer, it can be purchased separately. As for voice communication, the Internet must be fast, preferably unlimited.

But this was a digression, and now let's move on to downloading and installing Skype. First of all, let's go to the official website of the program by clicking on the blue button below.

Downloaded, find the file, as a rule it is in the "Downloads" folder. By the way, it can be opened with a combination Ctrl+J. Next comes the installation. Choose the language, accept the terms of the agreement, then in the new window uncheck the box next to the line " Install Skype Click to Call Plugin” and press the button “ Proceed". At the next stage, you will need to choose, or rather refuse to integrate the Bing search engine and the MSN home page into the browser. These are Microsoft services that they actively promote, but these services are not interesting and are not needed, and therefore, we uncheck the boxes “ Make Bing your default search engine" and "Make MSN your home page". The installer will now install the program. The installation will take approximately 2-3 minutes. When the installation is complete, the program will appear, and Skype itself will automatically start.

In order to launch the Skype program and start communication, you need to register in the system by inventing your unique login, which will be the so-called number in the Skype system.

How to sign up for Skype.

To register in Skype, click on the "Register" button in the program window, or on the official website on the main page, click on the green circle with the inscription "Registration". To register on Skype, you will need to enter some data or do it using your account on the social network Facebook (if you are registered there), by clicking on the appropriate menu. For self-registration in the system, you need to enter some data. The fields marked with an asterisk are required to be entered.

Then you will need to come up with a Skype Login - a name in the Skype system. Your name in the system must be unique, that is, not be taken by another user in the system, so it is possible that you will need some time to come up with a login. If the name you entered is already in use by the user, the system will inform you about this and offer its own options. After the login is selected, we proceed to enter the password for the account. The password for Skype must be complex, that is, it must not include the date of birth, phone number, etc. The password combination must include Latin letters and numbers. The length of the password must be from 6 to 20 characters, while uppercase and lowercase letters are not considered the same, they are different.

At the end, you will need to specify the method of communication for informing the system: SMS messages or email, and then enter the text that is shown in the picture (protection from robots). After entering all the required information, click on the " I agree (-on) - next».

How to launch and set up Skype

After registration, we return to the Skype window and enter the username and password there, then the system will prompt you again to set the program to automatically start when the system boots. After choosing automatic or manual download, click on the "Login" button. In order to start Skype the next time, if you did not set the program to start automatically, an icon was installed on the desktop, it will also be placed in the Start menu.

So, you are in the Skype program and now you need to configure it, it will take a couple of minutes. To configure Skype, you will need to select in the top menu of the program - " Instruments", and then - " Settings" and you will see the following window:

There are quite a few settings here, but you just need to adjust the sound and video. To do this, go to the " Sound settings". After that, connect a headset or speakers with a webcam (if its microphone will be used). In the sound settings, opposite each type of device, select the device that will be used for this. In addition, you can immediately test the device of your choice and set the volume level. Next, go to the section Video settings". If your webcam is connected and configured correctly, the webcam image will appear in the window. If necessary, you can click on the button Webcam settings» for more precise settings.

To add a contact to Skype, in the left menu, click on the plus sign and in the field where the magnifying glass is located, enter the username or first and last name of the user you want to find. In order to add a found user, right-click on this contact and select the menu item " Add user". To do this, you will need to send a request to the user to add you to their list. In this request, you can leave the standard phrase, or you can write something from yourself.

In order to close the Skype program, and not minimize it, you need to right-click in (bottom right of the screen) on the Skype icon, and select the "Exit" item in the menu that appears.

Well, that's all about the program. I hope you managed to do everything right and now you can enjoy communication with family and friends. If you do not understand something, write, I will help.

Skype is designed for personal and business communication at any time, in any circumstance, on any device, such as mobile phones, computers or Alexa. Unique Features voice and video calls, and Skype text messages help you communicate and work together. It is suitable for making one-on-one and group calls.

You can have Skype meetings and get together with colleagues, share experiences and celebrate holidays with friends and family, and learn new skills with a teacher. Skype is a free app. You can send messages, make sound and video calls, including in groups of up to 50 people!

And by making some money to your account, you can call regular phones and send SMS messages. You can pay only for calls already made or subscribe to a calling plan, whichever suits you best.

Download Skype today and start adding friends, family and colleagues to your contact list. It will not be difficult to find them on Skype, because Skype has been around for a long time for a variety of purposes hundreds of millions of people.

Contacts

Skype was founded in 2003 and is today a division of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) headquartered in Luxembourg.

Sitemunications SARL
23-29 Rives de Clausen
L-2165 (Luxembourg)
Company registration number: R.C.S. Luxembourg B100.468
Authorized Representative: Lauri Paal
VAT code: LU 20981643

Communication is one of the main components of our life. The development of technology pushed letters written by hand to the “backyard”, giving the palm to IT tools. The latter include mobile communications and the Internet. With their help, you can freely communicate, being hundreds of thousands of kilometers apart. Now we do not run to the mailbox - we rush to the computer as fast as we can, when the Skype call begins to ring melodiously and loudly in it.

Leading communication tool

Without exaggeration, we can say that this program is a kind of symbol of freedom on the Internet. Many users of this utility are seriously interested in how Skype was created and who was its founder? There are many opinions about this issue. And most of them are false. Interestingly, many Danes and Swedes declare with absolute certainty that the developers of Skype are their compatriots. However, this is not entirely true. This article talks about who really invented Skype and how this utility has gained recognition around the world.

Estonian roots

Everyone probably knows a small beautiful European country whose name automatically raises a smile - Estonia. For some reason, the population of the former Soviet Union associates this state exclusively with the slowness and slowness of its citizens. Imagine the surprise of many when it becomes known that the creation of Skype is the work of the Estonian guys. Agree, it is incredible that this country with a slow pace of life is home to one of the fastest programs for communication on the Internet. This fact contains a seemingly hidden allusion to an absolutely false idea of ​​the temperament and character of Estonians.

The origin and development of the utility

The history of Skype began in 2003. It was then, about 11 years ago, that the Estonian guys Ahti Heinla, Priit Kasesalu and Jan Tallinn developed the initial code, which was the foundation of the future program. At that time, they were also working on a file sharing utility between Internet users. This program is called KaZaa. Together with Estonian young people, the founders of the described file hosting service also worked on this project: Dane Janus Friis and Swede Nicholas Zenstorm. In the process of work, not even slow guys designed the code, which became the basis for the future interactive program.

In parallel with how Skype was created, programmers studied the requirements and wishes of users of the World Wide Web. It became clear that people no longer have enough of a simple chat. Therefore, the team of creators decided to endow the utility with all possible functions that will facilitate not only written communication, but also video communication, as well as the exchange of various data.

Name choice

The original name for the utility was the expression "Sky peer-to-peer", which means "Across the sky with each other." The team then settled on a shortened version of "Skyper". However, in the process of registering domains on the World Wide Web, it was discovered that this name was already taken on many resources. As a result, young people "threw" the last letter "r" from the name and opted for a simple and concise "Skype". This name selection process took several months. The final decision was made in April 2003. The result was the successful registration of domain names Skype.net and Skype.com.

Full version and rise in popularity

In August of the same year, an official program was made available on the Internet, which had almost all the functionality planned by the developers. The so-called beta version was released to the network in order to obtain detailed information about errors and malfunctions. While Skype was being created, the programmers decided in the future, as far as possible, to introduce into their "brainchild" the functions that consumers want to see. It is thanks to the beta version that the developers have collected enough information about the tastes and preferences of users, which allowed them to create a fast utility equipped with various modes.

The first full version became available to users in autumn 2003. It is noteworthy that in a few months the number of users of this program has grown hundreds of thousands of times. A huge number of people thanked those talented programmers who came up with Skype.

Advantages of the utility

What attracted users to this program?

For starters, it's free to use. The minimum and necessary set of functions for communication is available for free. Remarkably, among them the leading position is occupied by video communication. For many people who live hundreds of thousands of miles apart, this mode is a great opportunity to be closer to each other.

The second point is quick registration. In order to become a member of the large "Skype family" it is enough to enter your mailbox address in the field, select a nickname and password. And that's all. Now you can enjoy.

This utility also has a convenient and intuitive interface. Thanks to the well-designed toolbar, you can easily switch modes, change tabs and customize the program. The fourth point is a convenient and quick search for an interlocutor. Just go to the "Contacts" tab and click "Add contact". We enter a name for the search and in the window that appears, select the one we need. A request to be added to the contact list will be sent at the same time.

Of course, the huge advantage of Skype over other programs for communication is the presence of a large number of different functions. The first and most common (like all similar and similar utilities) is the ability to send and receive simple text messages. The presence of video calls has made Skype the leading application for contacting distant interlocutors. In addition, using the program, you can share various files: send photos, documents, music, videos, and more.

First problem

Two years after the release of the program, the first unpleasant event for developers occurred. Trying to introduce the population of China to the new mobile version of the utility, a team of young programmers received serious resistance from local telecommunications companies. The reason for this was the fear of Asian corporations to lose control over the conquered market segments. Only a few Chinese companies made concessions and agreed to add the SkypeOut application to their mobile phones.

Sale and returns

The rapid growth in popularity has attracted the attention of large companies to this program. In 2005, the developers sold their "brainchild". The buyer was eBay, which offered $2.6 billion for the interactive utility. After some time, the corporation, known worldwide for its online auctions and the PayPal payment system, paid bonus payments to the developers of the program, increasing the cost of Skype by 500 million. The history of the creation and modernization of the utility includes another owner. In 2011, eBay sold the rights to the program back to the developers and their attracted investor, Microsoft. The deal amounted to $8.5 billion.

At the moment, this is the full version of the story about how much the developers have yet to come. A huge number of plans are in front of programmers. We can only look forward to new and more advanced versions of the Skype interactive communication program.

Over the ten years of its existence, Skype - a unique program for free voice communication over the Internet, based on peer-to-peer technology and allowing you not to be afraid of intercepting calls - has become one of the many Microsoft services, supervised by all self-respecting intelligence agencies in the world. How could this happen? The usual thing is money.

KaZaA

The real story of Skype began in 2000, when two employees of the Swedish telecommunications company Tele2 - the Swede Niklas Zennström with an engineering and business education and the Dane Janus Friis, who did not even have a completed secondary education - were recruited to work on the entertainment and news portal Everyday.com , the likes of which just then came into vogue. Probably to save money, the management of the Estonian branch of Tele2 placed an ad in the local newspaper for qualified programmers with a pay of about $300 per day.

At first, reviews of Skype were skeptical, primarily because of the mediocre sound quality, but the mere fact that this application allowed you to communicate with people on the other side of the world for free made me look at it from a completely different perspective. The well-known American venture capitalist William Draper decided to invest in the people who made KaZaA, and the invested millions returned to him a thousand times more.

The first full-fledged version of Skype was released on August 29, 2003, and the company of the same name was registered in Luxembourg, a country where foreign jurisdictions do not welcome interference in the activities of their legal entities. And it was very reasonable, because the "robin hoods" of file sharing have now become the worst enemies of all telecommunications companies in the world. On the first day Skype was downloaded by 10,000 people.

Skype: eBay era

After working with KaZaA, Skype was originally created as a product protected from interception: all conversations were encrypted without fail, and computers connected to the network were supposed to act as supernode servers to one degree or another. The only necessary central element of the network is a server with user accounts and backup copies of their contact lists, containing no other information. Skype easily bypassed firewalls, skillfully masked its traffic, leaked through any available ports and left no trace of its presence on the Internet.

As a result, for some time it became a favorite tool for criminals of all stripes, and with the opening of paid services (for example, calls to SkypeOut phones), they even began to use it for money laundering. Not surprisingly, law enforcement and intelligence agencies of all countries, as well as representatives of telecommunications companies, bombarded Skype's Luxembourg and London offices with a wide variety of angry demands, which the company's lawyers simply sent to the trash without reading.

This was possible not only due to the Luxembourg “registration” of the company, but also due to the fact that Zennström and Friis now paid the closest attention to the legal support of the business: KaZaA’s experience made them make every effort to ensure that the next enterprise was one hundred percent legal. In particular, Skype was never registered as a telecom operator, instead the company was considered an "electronic information provider", like, for example, an enterprise providing e-mail services.

Until 2005, Skype bore little resemblance to a typical high-tech business: price lists for paid services were compiled without relying on any marketing research, staff were recruited based on the results of simple tests, and salaries and even the terms of its payment were not prescribed anywhere. None of the three Skype offices - in Tallinn, Luxembourg and London - even had signs, and the offices themselves were impossible to find by a random person.

At the same time, the number of lawsuits against Skype has steadily grown, while Yahoo!, AOL, Microsoft and Google have announced their intention to open similar services of their own in the near future. In the summer of 2005, Zennström and Friis began negotiations with eBay, and in September it was announced that Skype had been sold to this largest online auction for $ 2.6 billion: this was the most impressive purchase of eBay in history. The partners woke up as billionaires, and the Estonian programming team received $42 million each. In addition, another 140 people in Tallinn and London had small stakes in the company.

It is unlikely that eBay really understood that about they bought, and most importantly - why. The cultural differences between the Estonian and American staff of the company were so great that even the corporate parties that took place in Pärnu simply shocked the Americans. eBay representatives' hair stood on end when they saw a "live" TV broadcast of the 2006 Skype party, where Zennström poured vodka to everyone with his own hands, and the guests splashed in the pool right in their clothes.

At the same time, Skype brought much less profit than a headache, and in 2009 eBay decided to spin it off as a separate company and put its shares on the stock exchange. And then the former owners Zennström and Friis reappeared on the scene with a proposal to buy Skype back. Moreover, they had a well-known argument in their arsenal: all rights to patents still remained in the ownership of the offshore Joltid, and the eBay store used them under license. Meanwhile, eBay managed to sell a 65% stake in Skype to investment fund Andreessen Horowitz, as a result of which Joltid started litigation against two rivals, accusing them of illegally using other people's patents.

The situation was resolved by a settlement with eBay, which ended up with nothing but a waiver of legal action from Joltid and licenses for their peer-to-peer technology. Skype was bought by Microsoft in 2011 for $8.5 billion.

Skype: the era of Microsoft

The acquisition of Skype was also the largest purchase in history for Microsoft, as well as for eBay. Zennström and Friis for the second time received impressive money for their most successful enterprise. For the time being, Skype is still a standalone application run by the Microsoft Skype division, with offices in Luxembourg, Tartu and Tallinn. But, knowing Microsoft, there is no doubt that in the future this application will become just a part of the code of some larger branded product, and the name Skype itself will remain in the past.

And, most importantly, there was nothing left of the former secrecy of the negotiations: according to former NSA employee Edward Snowden, the US intelligence agencies got behind the scenes of Skype with the help of eBay, and in order to disguise the technical and legal consequences of such actions, the secret Chess project was allegedly developed, about which only a few people at eBay knew. There is no doubt that this collaboration continues into the Microsoft era. In addition, now the communication technology itself has been changed in such a way that it is no longer possible to create supernodes on some separate computers within the network that meet purely technical requirements: all their functions have been transferred to Microsoft servers.

In turn, the user agreement now allows access to the transmitted data both by Microsoft itself and by affiliated companies and Internet providers. The availability of means to control Skype conversations has already been openly announced by the intelligence services of several states, including, of course, Russia.

Of the entire original Skype team, only one person continues to work on the system - Priit Kazesalu. Annus quit immediately after selling the system to eBay, Tallinn and Heinla held on for another couple of years. All of them are now very wealthy people, investing in a variety of start-ups: Tallinn, for example, participates in the Lifeboat Foundation's "saving humanity" project and owns MetaMed, a "personalized healthcare" company. Billionaires Zennström and Friis enjoy life and are seen in acts of charity.

What is Skype

Skype is one of the most popular Internet telephony services in the world, as well as the messenger preferred by many.

Skype was created by Skype Technologies SA in 2003. The history of creating a product for citizens of the post-Soviet space is notable for the fact that Estonians took part in writing the first program. Even now, according to Wikipedia, Skype has the majority of developers and almost half of the general department in its Estonian division. The company itself began as a national Swedish company, and positioned its program as VoiP- means of Internet telephony. Following the acquisition in 2011 of Skype Limited by Microsoft, the company is a division of Microsoft headquartered in Luxembourg,

What does the word Skype, which gave the name of the world-famous program and company, mean? It is useless to look in dictionaries for how this abbreviation is translated. Initially, the application program was called Sky Peer-to-Peer, which can be translated as "heavenly peering". The name described the principle of the service, but it turned out to be too long, they decided to shorten it to Skyper, the domain of the same name turned out to be busy, and we decided to use a truncated Skype.

First version 0.97 appeared in 2003, and since then the version history of the program has been a history of innovation and world conquest. All versions of Skype - from the first to the latest - are the introduction of new technologies, focus on new types of devices and removal from competitors. The number of users and market share of international calls is constantly growing.

What is Skype today? This is a free program with which users can make calls to other subscribers and exchange messages and files with them. Subscribers can also subscribe to paid services: calls to landlines and mobile phones, sending SMS, access to Wi-Fi. What can be done on Skype for free today was still possible yesterday only with a subscription: for example, . At the time of this writing, beta testing of a version with a built-in function has been launched instant translation. The dictionaries available for voice calls and chats differ. For voice communication, this is so far English and Spanish, for messages - 44 languages ​​used in Microsoft Translator. In the near future, we are waiting for simultaneous translation into Russian of conversations and words in more than 40 languages ​​of the world.

Those who have this program prefer to use it both as a means of audio and video communication, and as a messenger, that is, via the Internet. Some argue that Skype is a social network. But to call it a social network can only be a very big stretch. Here, information about your posts is available only to a certain circle of users included in the correspondence, and from public information, and even then only to your contacts, information - how old you turn on your birthday, a small photo and status. Still, Skype is a "normal" communication service, the main purpose of which is to provide high-quality communication.

The application is so popular that in connection with it there are many questions even among the uninitiated. We answer FAQ- FAQ.

What is Skype?

What year was the app launched?

In 2003. This is the date of foundation of the company, and the creation of the first version.

Who owns the program?

After the transaction of 2011 Skype is included into Microsoft corporation

How many users around the world use Skype?

These data vary depending on the source. Usually used with numbers "more than 300 million", and here is the wiki data - 660 million. We don’t know if Wikipedia estimates Skype correctly, but the fact that the number of users is huge is also confirmed by the official “modest” data, and the reviews about the service are mostly good.

What does it mean that Skype uses VoiP?

This means that IP networks (one of which is the Internet) are used to connect subscribers. What the program does with them is another question. Skype sets the algorithm for using these networks and many other parameters.

Where is the full archive of program versions stored?

Versions that are no longer supported or that do not correspond to the state of the art are not stored in the public domain on the official website. To have access to them and be able to run them, you need to contact special repositories or specialists interested in the subject. They will help you decide what versions are available for your device in case it is outdated, and what this or that product is for.

What does the Skype logo look like?

Skype is a trademark owned by Skype / Microsoft and is protected by copyright:

Therefore, the trademark sign is integrated into the logo tm / tm:

Please note: if an adapted spelling of the word “Skype” is possible in the text, then in the logo the word can only be used as it is written in English.

We hope this article allowed you to understand why Skype is needed, what it is and where it came from.

Now you need and - welcome to the world of unlimited communication!

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