Who said that there is no good goods for free - Internet phone can also be played for free!

At present, many instant messaging software supports voice chat, but the actual effect is not ideal. Not always connected, or the voice quality is too bad. It wasn't until I used Skype that I knew it was the "dream lover" I was looking for.

Unlike ordinary Internet telephony, Skype perfectly combines today's two cutting-edge technologies—VoIP and P2P technologies—to establish peer-to-peer communication without a fixed server, and to break through the firewall without any setup. High quality voice calls. In addition, it can be text chat like other chat software. Let's take a look at this amazing software.

What is VoIP?
VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol), which is "voice service realized by IP packet transmission". It allows you to make calls over a computer network. Simply put, the basic principle is to compress and encode the voice of the voice compression device, then package the voice data according to the relevant protocol, transmit the data packet to the destination through the network, and then string the voice data packets and decode them. After the decompression process, the original voice signal is restored, thereby achieving the purpose of transmitting voice by the network.

Yang for Chinese
Register an account, log in, you can see the simple main interface, but the language is English. Click on the menu "Tools" → "Select Language" and select "Chinese (Simplified)" in the drop-down menu to switch the interface to the Chinese interface (Figure 1).

Figure 1

handy buddy list
The software was also adopted as the other instant messaging software designed buddy list, compared with the general phonebook way, you can easily find Friends (Figure 2). In addition, there is a function to transmit a friend list, which is greatly convenient for the user.

After using the author, I found some shortcomings of the software, such as no grouping function, it is not convenient for group meetings. In addition, only the buddy list is saved on the local hard disk, not on the server, and it is not convenient for the user to use the software on other computers.

powerful search function of the software
friend search function is very strong. In the "Search" window, click the "Advanced" button to set more detailed search criteria, more able to find friends (Figure 3).

Figure 3

prompt
right-click on the title bar of the search results, you can add columns, and how to sort the search results set.

Text chat
Unlike other Internet phones, Skype not only provides voice chat, but also supports text chat, especially for offline messages, so you don't miss every opportunity to communicate with friends. (Figure 4).

Accessible voice chat
Voice chat is the highlight of Skype. Throughout the software, this feature is ubiquitously linked. Double-click the username, right-click on the username, and so on to start the voice chat feature (Figure 5).

Figure 5

In order to really research as Skype without any publicity that will be able to break through the firewall settings, I deliberately do a lot of testing.

The author's network environment is Netcom Community Broadband (10Mbps bandwidth sharing), the system is WinXP+SP1, IE 6.0, using the "Jinshan Net Dart 6" software firewall. Test the Skype connection status of several major broadband network service providers when the firewall is turned on and off.

turn off the firewall:
Telecom (ADSL) Railway (Cable Moden) China Unicom (green)
exhaled √ √ √
incoming √ √ √
open the firewall:
Telecom (ADSL) CRC (Cable Moden) Unicom (green)
incoming exhalation √ √ √
√ √ √

FIG. 7

experimentally confirmed, Skype can indeed penetrate Firewall, and can connect successfully very quickly, only in a few cases requires multiple connections. During the test, it was found that the software sometimes had intermittent sounds, but it will improve after a period of continuous use.