Skype is EVIL

I have come to realise that Skype is EVIL and very DEVIOUS! I am glad that I don't use it but my boys do. I have made Angus uninstall it. Brodie has his own internet connection now so its up to him whether he stops using it or not.

I guess I should explain why I believe it is evil. Don't get me wrong it does have it's good uses but they are awfully sneaky.

Unlike other VoIP services, Skype is a peer-to-peer system rather than a client–server system, and makes use of background processing on computers running Skype software; the original name proposed – Sky peer-to-peer – reflects this.

Some network administrators have banned Skype on corporate, government, home, and education networks,citing reasons such as inappropriate usage of resources, excessive bandwidth usage, and security concerns^{. (from wiki)}

Take note of the quote above on the excessive bandwidth usage. Our internet data allowance gets reset on the 26th of each month. We have an AWESOME plan where we get 80 GB for peak times and 120 GB off-peak. Since our internet was reset 9 days ago we have used a whopping 36.5 GB of our peak time allowance. That was because Skype was running in the background of Angus's laptop.

When we switched to this plan a few months ago we weren't even reaching half of our allowance that is until last month when we used 3/4 of it. Now I know why. If you have a darned good internet connection Skype detects it and uses you as a 'server' for other Skype clients.

If you use Skype just make sure that you don't leave it open when you aren't using it or you may end up with all of you data allowance gone before you realise it.