
How to share screen on skype 8.31 free#
But other than that, everything is free and accessible including call recording, mobile screen sharing, live subtitles and more. You can chat and call with your teammates as well, but if you want to directly call phone numbers across regions then you will have to pay some charges. So in a way, Skype is not bad at all and brings limitless features without any cost. However, you do not have any limit on group calls on Skype whereas Zoom has a 40-min limit if there are more than 3 participants. In terms of participant limit, Skype can host up to 50 participants which is half of Zoom’s 100 participants offering under the free tier plan. Skype can be very helpful for small companies to hold web meetings and seminars in HD quality and best of all, without any charge. And that’s why I am talking about the free version of Skype which is for personal users. I know Skype for Business has been replaced by Microsoft Teams and it’s no longer available. Visit Website (1-month Free Trial, Starts at $5/month) To conclude, if you are looking for a capable Zoom alternative then Microsoft Teams is a suitable pick. Having said all of that, Microsoft Teams brings a lot of additional perks like screen sharing, access to 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage, Office 365 access and more. Nevertheless, Microsoft Teams can handle up to 10,000 teammates in a web seminar which is equal to Zoom’s ability. However, keep in mind, Microsoft Teams allows you to host a web meeting of up to 250 participants in comparison to Zoom’s capability to scale up to 1000 participants. As I said, it’s a powerful tool for web communication either through video, audio or chat. You can chat, make a video call to your teammates, access Office 365 documents, collaborate in real-time, and also call anyone from Teams Calling or direct Phone System. It comes with a range of features and in some cases, even exceeds Zoom’s capabilities. I would say if you are looking for a complete web communication solution like Zoom then Microsoft Teams would arguably be the best alternative.

So now that you know the why, let’s get to our list. And if you don’t have a complete disregard for your privacy, you too should be looking at Zoom alternatives. Just recently, New York City banned Zoom from being used it schools citing its security concerns. Many companies and government institutions have barred their employees from using Zoom. Needless to say, the discovery of one security flaw after another is not looking good for the company. Then there are cases of Zoom bombing where hackers were able to join ongoing Zoom calls and disturb the chats by using profanity, racial slurs, and NFSW content. The researchers at Citizen Lab, found that the some Zoom calls were routed through China which is a big security concern in itself. In another case, Washington Post found that thousands of personal Zoom recordings were available on open web, some even uploaded to YouTube. Many users discovered that Zoom was secretly sending data to Facebook. However, as millions of new users joined the service, the problems became apparent.

Till Zoom was small and not so widely adopted, its underlying problems were not discovered. Well, Zoom is the classic example of a product where its success became its downfall.

If Zoom is so good, why are we looking for its alternatives? Combine all these factors, and Zoom seems to offer a perfect product. You can make 40-minute conference calls with up to 100 attendees for free. Another reason behind Zoom’s success is its generous free plan. Zoom capitalized on this demand by providing a solution that works and has an easy-to-use interface. Since COVID-19 has forced millions of employees to work from their home, the need for a good video conferencing app became paramount. Before we start our list, let us first discuss why we Zoom has become such a success overnight and why you should be looking for its alternatives:
