Brief Hands-On Report--Skype 2.6.0.148

Skype released an update to its VoIP client to v2.6.0.148. It is available within the application or as a stand-alone update via this MacUpdate Web page.

Here are the changes:

• improvement: Skype's own audio codec
  
• improvement: Skype improved conference mixer
  
• improvement: Skype Jitter Buffer and concealment
  
• improvement: Skype audio preprocessing components
  
• localizations: all updated
  
• bugfix: fixed application hangup on handling certain URL links in chat messages
  
• bugfix: fixed exception (resulting in disappearance of message) on handling certain intentionally constructed "bad" chat messages
  
• bugfix: privacy policy fix, not accepting multichats from non-authorized users

We use Skype extensively for international calls, saving hundreds of dollars, so we upgraded to the new version and tried several calls with it. No problems were encountered. [Bill Fox]