Anyone who uses Skype has consented to the company reading everything they write. The H's associates in Germany at heise Security have now discovered that the Microsoft subsidiary does in fact make use of this privilege in practice. Shortly after sending HTTPS URLs over the instant messaging service, those URLs receive an unannounced visit from Microsoft HQ in Redmond.

If you belong to that group, that is, if any of the core principles of free software does not come into play in your decision to use or not use a software, the latest news about Skype should make you think twice about using it.

GNU Free Call and WebRTC are both building frameworks that stand to make Skype obsolete. Skype has been in the news a lot lately: Microsoft agreed to buy the company, their network has gone down twice recently, and they're threatening to take unspecified action against developers who try to write free software to make calls on their system.

GNU Free Call will offer a service that's both secure and usable on all platforms, much the way closed-source Skype is, its developers say.

This tutorial shows how you can set up a Mandriva One 2010.1 Spring desktop (with the GNOME desktop environment) that is a full-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop, i.e. that has all the software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops.

This tutorial shows how you can set up a Linux Mint 8 (Helena) desktop that is a full-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop, i.e. that has all the software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that works even on old hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge.

This tutorial shows how you can set up a Kubuntu 9.10 desktop that is a full-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop, i.e. that has all the software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that works even on old hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge.

This tutorial shows how you can set up an Ubuntu Studio 9.10 desktop that is a full-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop, i.e. that has all the software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that works even on old hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge.