Any pointers or free apps, please?

Regular free Skype on a Sony Vaio Win 10.

Cheers!

Skype is an abomination.

WhatsApp and LINE are free, both work great on smartphones and both have a great desktop interface so you can use it on any computer or laptop.

Another option is we chat again free and works good

dunroaming wrote: ↑

November 21, 2018, 6:48 am

Another option is we chat again free and works good

Had to read 3 times before i saw the program was WeChat, thanks for the heads up will make sure wife tries on next trip.

Skype has great worldwide inexpensive calling features that allow you to call cell phones and land lines. Of course, computer to computer is free. I use it every couple of weeks.

Lone Star wrote: ↑

November 21, 2018, 8:11 am

Skype has great worldwide inexpensive calling features that allow you to call cell phones and land lines. Of course, computer to computer is free. I use it every couple of weeks.

Low-cost or free mobile and land calling worldwide is also a feature of LINE, WhatsApp, Viber and most others. I use WhatsApp video calls between the Myanmar hinterlands and the client's office in Australia.

I was a long, long time Skype user but a lot of the contractors I supervised ended up blocking the ports it uses since once you had 3 or 4 crew members video chatting at once, the bandwidth on the remote vSat system evaporated. It was and still is a bandwidth hog as well as a heavy CPU user as the OP suggests.

One feature I did like was having a US phone number hosted on Skype and it was handy when some online banking and brokerage activities required having a US number. It wasn't a free service but worth it at the time.