Available Phone/Video-Programs:

- Skype
- viber
- Firefox Hello
- appear.in
- Tango
- Google Hangouts
- Linphone

- oovoo






The original question is outdated - so I edited the topic to the result of the original: Programs/apps for Video/Phone conversations and added the results in a list. Feel free to post new suggestions, odeas and findings.

Original question:
Hi there,

my girlfriend will be on a trip to china for some time so I am currently looking for a video chat client.

Of course there is skype - but I also would be interested if you know alternatives working on both - mobile (preferably android or sailfish) and pc (preferably linux/ubuntu) that i have overseen so far.


A friend recommended me viber - but as far as i see this app sucks all the mobile numbers from your adress book just like whatsapp does - which i want to avoid.
I would prefer to have the choice not to allow that.

Can you recommand other solutions that might work for me? Any idea, tips etc. is welcome.

Might not work for you, but as I don't like any centralized solutions (dependent on external parties/companies that will steal your data while pretending to be your friends) I just usually roll my own solution.

In this case it would be to pipe audio and webcam stream through ssh connection. No extra parties required.

An app, please!

I don't see why one is required.
I generally dislike "apps" and the mentality that there should always be an "app" for any given task.

I think this particular task does deserve its own application. Users that want to do video calls don't necessarily want to (or even have the ability to) roll their own solution to that problem anymore than I want to build my own car. For that matter, I need to eat but I barely grow/raise any of my own food.

And really, if I were in that situation -- SO going out of country for a while, wants to keep in touch -- the last thing I'd want to be doing is trying to help her keep my personal hacked-together solution working from the other side of the globe. My wife would definitely not be amused by the opportunity and would most certainly solve the problem by just paying exorbitant charges for an international call.

AFAIK no mobile browser supports it un-prefixed yet (I guess they probably will in time), but I've been surprised how well WebRTC works. Well-implemented in Firefox Hello and appear.in, and the latter apparently has an Android app available. No idea if that would work on Sailfish to any extent, though.

If you want to go with a different evil empire, google hangouts (what a stupid name, IMO) works with Ubuntu and, I'm told, Android. Obviously, subject to being broken by Google at any time without warning . . .

There's also Tango -- which I've never tried and which seems to have a far-from-striaghtforward-anything-but-one-click-install for Ubuntu based on a French-language YouTube tutorial I found. Maybe some others that might work on Ubuntu with Wine.

well - since mobile phones mostly use apps this is actually quite a requirement.
Its not meant for any given task anyway - since the question is : how to stay in touch (easily) through a video chat app/programm/whatever while being far apart.
So as not necessaraly both will always be near a pc when we call each other the solution should be mobile.

I thought that was quite clear with the way i asked - sorry if it was misunderstandable.


@robthebold
thanks - I didn't have google on my map since they shut down their xmpp solution. Better to know more possibilities than less.

Tango - never heard of it before. Bad name anyway since you got a lot of wrong hits when searching for it. Would be an ok solution (also I did not yet find out if they differ from viber - means: they suck in your adress book) since we have to possibility for a pc with win to (although we use ubuntu linux as favourite)

@eztran - thanks. I tried firefox hello already (unsucessfull with my brother) - but I'll give it another try. Also I am not quite sure if maybe some websites are blocked in china. But worth a try anyway.

So the list so far is (non ordered):
- Skype
- viber
- Firefox Hello
- appear.in
- Tango

Any other idea or suggestion is welcome. The more the merrier.

you can use sip like linphone.org it works good

I've seen you mention linphone before, haven't I?

Is it possible to get it to do video calls on the n900?