Comments on: Freeware Monitors Skype Subscription Usage Limits

By: Bill

Bill — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 17:49:01 +0000

I figured out what my problem was.. didn’t have .NET 3.5 installed.

–Bill

By: Bill

Bill — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 00:46:32 +0000

Im unable to download this software. When I click on the install button on the website it does a check I guess on my PC OS and then tells me that its not the correct format and cannot be downloaded. Im using Windows Vista Service Pack 1. Please help. Thanks!

–Bill

By: Kyle

Kyle — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:09:10 +0000

To be fair, the fair usage limits are quite high.

From the Skype Fair Usage Policy (as of 6/1/09): “Calls to phones and mobiles and Skype To Go* calls are included in your subscription subject to a fair usage limit of 10,000 minutes per user per month, with a maximum of 6 hours per day.”

At that rate, you could almost talk for 6 hours a day for the entire month and still be within the limit. In my mind, this makes the service practically unlimited.

That said, I’m not a huge fan of doublespeak and I wish the “fine print” details were a bit more explicit.

By: Oliver

Oliver — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:00:37 +0000

Ah, yes, another one of those “unlimited” services.

I am surprised that the various wireless carriers aren’t calling their regular phone plans unlimited plans, with a small asterisk and fine print that says “extra per-minute charges apply if you exceed 200 minutes a month”.

By: TheUberOverLord

TheUberOverLord — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:52:23 +0000

You are very welcome. I felt I owed it to your readers, so they will know why this information is needed and that this information could not be gathered without it.

Which is good really, otherwise we would all know who was calling whom :P

By: Kevin C. Tofel

Kevin C. Tofel — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:47:25 +0000

Thanks for the clarification! :) I didn’t mean to insinuate any impropriety by my statement on the Skype credentials. Readers typically ask about the security of such things and without any detailed info on how your application handles it, I was simply offering my standard warning. Thanks again!

By: TheUberOverLord

TheUberOverLord — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:54:59 +0000

I am the author of this and wish to make others aware that this type of call data is not available without Skype name and password, so there is no choice but to request this infomation in order to provide these subscription totals.

As you can see, I do have a check box called Save, that when unchecked will not store Skype name and password which will require a logon each time the SMFS – (“Subscription Monitor For Skype”) is started and used when the “Save” check box is unchecked, othewise when SMFS – (“Subscription Monitor For Skype”) is started it will gather these totals automatically, at startup.

It should be noted that the password is encrypted with secure encryption methods when the data is saved as well, and the data is only used between the local system getting the subscription information and the Skype server. This can be easily verified by many tools such as process explorer.