The name for the software is derived from "Sky peer-to-peer", which was then abbreviated to "Skyper". However, some of the domain names … See more

At the end of 2010, there were over 660 million worldwide users, with over 300 million estimated active each month as of August 2015. At one point in February 2012, there were 34 million users concurrently online on Skype.
In January 2011, … See more

Protocol
Skype uses a proprietary Internet telephony (VoIP) network called the Skype protocol. The protocol has not been made publicly available by … See more

Skype was founded in 2003 by Niklas Zennström, from Sweden, and Janus Friis, from Denmark. The software was created by Estonians Ahti Heinla, Priit Kasesalu, Jaan Tallinn, … See more

Registered users of Skype are identified by a unique Skype ID and may be listed in the Skype directory under a Skype username. Skype allows these registered users to communicate through both instant messaging and voice chat. Voice chat allows See more

Client applications and devices
Windows client
Multiple different versions of Skype have been released for Windows since its conception. The … See more

Skype was claimed initially to be a secure communication, with one of its early web pages stating "highly secure with end-to-end encryption". Security services were invisible to the user, and encryption cannot be disabled. Skype claims to use publicly documented, … See more