Apps are available for all.Īssuming you’re okay with entering a mobile number, the rest of the setup is easy: you download and install the app, punch in a valid mobile number, wait for a special code to be sent via SMS (or via an optional callback), then enter it in the desktop app, click the prompts and agreements, et voila - you’re good to go! On the plus side, the company support a huge array of mobile OSes - from Android, iOS and Windows Phone, to smaller platforms like Nokia Asha and Samsung Bada. This is an annoyance that makes using it far less accessible than Skype. This presents a hurdle: to set up Viber you have to install the mobile app on your smartphone. Viber doesn’t use a traditional means of ‘registration’ but instead utilises your mobile number as your ‘identity’ on the service, much like WhatsApp.
So it was time to go hands-on and find out for myself. Since the company behind the service claim to have more than 200 million active users - a huge number - it suggests they must be doing something right. In Viber this has an equivalent, ‘Viber Out’, but is currently only available in the iPhone and Android apps and not on the desktop - a drawback worth noting down if you make heavy use of it.īut having a feature list as long as a phonebook is one thing. Skype allows users to load ‘credit’ for making external calls to landline and mobile phones. It also boasts a few unique features of its own, like desktop-to-mobile synchronisation of calls and chats, location sharing, and a one-button way to seamlessly transfer calls between Viber on a desktop and Viber on a mobile. It provides mobile and desktop applications capable of making free video and voice calls, sending message and stickers, and exchanging files and photo between active users on the service, for free. Viber – Video Chat, Stickers & MoreĪny service hoping to go toe-to-toe with a giant like Skype needs to be able to match it, punch for punch. That was until they mentioned that it had a desktop Linux client. I wasn’t keen at first, recalling my earlier, ambivalent encounter.
Recently, having run into a few issues with Skype (none of which are insurmountable), a handful of my Twitter followers recommended that I try out Viber. Like a lot of people, I didn’t find much use for it at the time so the app was duly binned, and its name resigned to loiter around with less-than-stellar connotations in the back of my head. My first experience with Viber came a few years back, back when it was a mobile-based messaging app in the vein of WhatsApp and Telegram. It is often touted as a superior alternative to the perennially popular VoIP service Skype - but is Viber truly able to live up to such claims?
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