The ‘hiding’ call toolbar, your privacy and bypassing countries that try to block Skype.
Over the years we’ve shown a lot of people, mostly travelers, how to get more from Skype. As well as our Skype Hidden Extras article, here’s a few more tips from the Skype coalface.
The call toolbar
When you make a Skype computer-to-computer call there’s a useful toolbar at the bottom of the call window. Microsoft ‘hides’ this toolbar and it doesn’t appear automatically. A dubious feature that confuses the *@%@#$ out of many Skype novices or people trying to explain during a call!
Hover your mouse pointer near the bottom of the call window (below the call video or profile images) until the toolbar appears. There’s no way to ‘lock’ this toolbar so it’s always visible.
From left to right the buttons are:
Instant Messaging – turns the IM / texting window on or off.
Video – turns your camera on / off
Audio – turns your microphone on / off
Extras – screen sharing, send files, send contacts, add people to a group call, show dial pad.
Call Quality – a meter that shows the relative call quality.
Full screen – makes the video call images full screen.
Privacy
With all the revelations about government and corporate spying on Internet traffic, you have to consider the level of privacy available on Skype.
It has been confirmed that Microsoft software ‘reads’ Skype text messages and uses the content. No Skype IM message is private. It’s unclear if that extends to file transfers as well.
Presumably the US government and possibly other authorities can get a Skype users activity details – who they called, when and for how long. Most likely IM and text messaging is also logged and stored in some massive government server farm.
There’s a small chance of some agency actually listening in on Skype calls. It’s presumably possible but very unlikely.
Bypassing a blocked Skype
Some countries try to block the use of Skype. China and the United Arab Emirates (Dubai, Abu Dhabi etc) are the most prominent culprits.
In most cases the real reason for banning Skype is money. Skype is blocked because it costs the local telephone companies a lot of money from lucrative overseas call rates.
In our experience it’s only the Skype web sites that are blocked. That makes it hard to download the Skype software or pay money into your Skype account. However the Skype software to make or receive calls and IM’s is a lot harder to block and often isn’t.
As long as you have Skype installed and loaded with funds before going to a place like the UAE or China you should be OK. That’s been our experience in both places. Failing that, use a VPN service to bypass any web site blocking.
