Overall Impressions:

 Skype made VoIP (voice over IP) technology accessible for a growing number of users, never ceasing to satisfy their communication needs. Distance means nothing when it comes to get in touch with friends, family and business thanks to the free Skype-to-Skype calls and cheap international calls to phones and mobiles. There’s also the possibility to send and receive instant messages, share files and initialize video calling. If you want to share your thoughts and experience to many, Skype’s features includes conference calls and group chats.

Overall Impressions

One of the most popular free instant messaging software offers now new possibilities to connect and have a lot of fun with users from Yahoo network and MSN, Gmail and Facebook. It comes with a bundle of useful features, like instant chat, video and voice calling, mail alert, file transfer, photo sharing and games.

Installation and support

After you download Yahoo Messenger 11 setup file, you can choose either the typical or the custom installation. In the custom install you accept or reject the Yahoo Toolbar and Yahoo Shortcuts and you may set Yahoo as your default search engine and www.yahoo.com your homepage. In the installation package is also included an add-on called Yahoo BrowserPlus, that simplifies the process of sending attachments, uploading pictures, etc. The installation process will introduce you the program’s features and it’s rather sluggish, depending on the bandwidth. 

Overview

Teamviewer 6 is a remote control application which lets you gain access over the desktops of your friends without being a computer savy. If you just run Teamviewer on your computer and ask the other person to do the same, you’ll be able to assist another person and let another assist you. You can also set the level of control you or the other person gains on your computer: presentation, remote support, file transfer or VPN.

Installation and support:

You can choose between a portable app and an installation version. If you choose to download the last one, the installation process is fast and secure, due to the lightweight installation kit (around 3MB). All you need is a PC running Windows 98 or a newer Windows version. When you install TeamViewer, you can choose to run at startup and you can also choose more secure screen sharing, installing the TeamViewer VPN driver.

Overall impressions

Google’s ambition to offer the world a free instant messaging program with voice and even video capabilities able to compete with the highly popular MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and Skype took the shape of Google Talk. With a user-friendly, simplistic interface, and yet nothing vital missing, G-Talk offers high quality services Voip, a perfect compatibility with other Google’s applications, like Gmail and Google Chat and some other features we’ll discuss later in the review.

Installation and support

Once you download Google Talk, the installation process is clean, due to the fact that Google Talk setup kit’s size is just 900kb and no third party software is needed. In order to enjoy the video chat function, one needs to download a Google Talk plugin. Unfortunately, GTalk is supported only by the Windows platform, more specifically, Windows XP or higher. But even if there’s no Google Talk for Linux or Mac, there’s a Google Talk video chat plug-in that enables the web-chat on Linux and Mac.