Friends who message you via less acceptable or egregious apps.

i use signal. i like it. only a few of my friends have it. so the feds can still read 85% of my communication. knowledge is power.

nope - checked, website version does the same.
weird little thing.
could be a setting in W10 (privacy setting), chrome setting, or a bug with the latest W10 build that came out last week.
cant be bothered to dig in further.

unannounced video calls

unacceptable. unannounced audio calls are bad enough.

FWIW when I referred to Skype I actually meant as a chat program, not the calls/video part of it.

We use it at work extensively to do workbased / group chats. I know Slack is the done thing everywhere else but I dunno.

Skype has the best emoji but nobody uses it for texting

using skype for texting is like buying a land rover for the spacious glove box

I think we just ended up using it for that cos we use it/all have accounts for other stuff... and Skype are a customer...

Sic otm about the emojis though, they're hilarious and fun.

https://az705183.vo.msecnd.net/onlinesupportmedia/onlinesupport/media/skype/screenshots/fa12330/emoticons/talktothehand_80_anim_gif.gif

the conclusion to draw from all this is that as usual tech companies have made our lives worse for their own ends

I use a combo of mime and interpretive dance.

trayce otm, ultimately it doesn't matter what we prefer because we end up using what everyone else uses

now that I know we can, I might sign all my ILX posts with a skype emoji

https://az705183.vo.msecnd.net/onlinesupportmedia/onlinesupport/media/skype/screenshots/fa12330/emoticons/discodancer_anim.gif