
Wire – Modern Communications Network - jkaljundi
https://www.wire.com/
======
secfirstmd
So in the age of Edward Snowden this is all they say about encryption...

"Are Messages And Calls Encrypted? Yes. Wire uses industry-standard encryption
on all of your Wire messages and calls."

"WHAT SECURITY MEASURES DO WE TAKE TO SAFEGUARD YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

We are concerned about safeguarding the confidentiality of your information.
We provide physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to protect
information we process and maintain. In addition, we restrict access to
personal information to Company employees who need to know this information in
order to develop, operate and maintain the Service."

Come on guys...how can anything this vague be trusted?

And by European they mean Swiss, so not specifically EU.

One of the typical evasive phrases...

From the Guardian Article:

"Locating its head office in Switzerland was Wire’s first decision taken on
security grounds. “If someone is interested in accessing our user data,
there’s a formal and well-regulated process in Switzerland for that. They’re
very mindful of privacy, and the same is true in Germany."

Swiss naturally implies safety for many people (which is deceptive...real,
verifiable, audited, end to end encryption is safety), for anyone unsure about
the reality of "Swiss" cooperation with NSA since the 70s, read about Crypto
AG

[http://mediafilter.org/caq/cryptogate/](http://mediafilter.org/caq/cryptogate/)

For those wondering about "Swiss privacy laws," if you are a foreign national
you are effectively fair game

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onyx_%28interception_system%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onyx_%28interception_system%29)

[http://www.iclg.co.uk/practice-areas/telecoms-media-and-
inte...](http://www.iclg.co.uk/practice-areas/telecoms-media-and-internet-
laws/telecoms,-media-and-internet-laws-and-regulations/switzerland)

~~~
FreezerburnV
Unfortunately, even if they DID specifically list out all the security
measures that they used, someone would still complain because it isn't
completely open source. The previous company I worked for not only had
legitimate encryption for anything private we received from the user (e.g.:
email passwords) so that nobody at the company could ever read them, but also
had some (if I remember correctly) good documentation on the site listing out
exactly what we were doing. The founder of the company even commented with the
specific technical details when our product was linked to on HN, and people
still weren't happy.

While I sympathize with what you're saying, nothing is going to make people
who actually care happy with whatever security a company puts in place. Unless
that company releases their source code for everyone to see. Which I would
hope most people would be reasonable enough to realize why that's usually
impractical. (see the previous HN post about the guy who shut down his
business and was debating open sourcing his entire codebase, and all the
problems he would have had to tackle to do so)

~~~
Ridley
There are already FOSS replacements for Skype, such as Tox. The fact is that
if every line of code can't be inspected then the software can't be considered
secure, and we're forced to put blind faith in a faceless corporation, which
is understandably not acceptable for many people. I don't really care if you
think this is "practical" or not. That's simply the reality of the situation.
Proprietary == insecure.

If a company is unable to profit off of making FOSS software then they can go
ahead and keep it closed source, but they should not be claiming that their
software is secure when their claims cannot be verified. That's simply
dishonest, and only proves the critics right about their trustworthiness.

~~~
FreezerburnV
I would argue that, theoretically, proprietary can be secure. A code base can
be made secure by highly experienced engineers who are paid to make the code
secure. You might never be able to see the code, but it could still be secure.
The problem is that you can never actual verify how secure the proprietary
solution is. So whether or not it is secure, you don't trust it. (there are
even some interesting arguments to be made about the security of any solution
that deals with some kind of user input. my previous boss stipulated that the
only way to have a truly secure email client is to have some third-party,
verified library that takes all the input, and spits out encrypted data to
whatever program deals with email servers, without the program dealing with
email servers ever seeing that input in plain text form because who knows what
it might do with it)

On the other hand as well, open source most certainly does not mean secure. I
don't even have to argue to make this point, I merely have to point out
Heartbleed or Shellshock.

~~~
bad_user
While you can argue that some piece of open source software can be more
insecure than a proprietary alternative, auditing a piece of software requires
access to the source code and that is mandatory. And with open source
everybody can audit with no restrictions. Yes, OpenSSH is a piece of shit, but
how do you think it was discovered, from 2 independent parties no less.

Then there's another effect that I like - after the initial patch was
released, the story went public, we got notified immediately, then we could
discuss about what caused it and see the actual commits and who did it. Such a
catastrophe can sink a company, therefore you never see such post mortems for
proprietary stuff. And yes, even I as a developer cannot audit software for
security, but the point is that I could hire somebody else to do that for me,
like the Finnish company that discovered Heartbleed.

So yeah, there is no concrete proof that proprietary stuff is less or more
secure than open source, but the point is that we'll never know, because
nobody can know how secure something is without looking at the source code.

~~~
RaleyField
OpenSSH or OpenSSL? I thought OpenSSH was pretty solid, forgetting the fact
that configuring it isn't as straightforeward as one would hope.

~~~
bad_user
Sorry, I meant OpenSSL. It was a typo.

------
NullReference
"What we need is another messaging app" said nobody, ever.

It looks pretty, but this is yet another app in the long list of "Skype
killers" or "Voice/video/text" messaging. It seems like it's the default goto
for anyone that can't think of something more interesting these days.

~~~
sspiff
Exactly. Right now, I have installed on my phone:

* Standard text messaging app, for almost everyone.

* Google Hangouts, which is a pain to remove and always logs in behind my back. I don't want to chat on my phone, it's just a nuisance. (I wish people would stop talking to me through Hangouts, honestly)

* Viber, with a single contact.

* LINE, with a single contact.

I don't have WhatsApp or Snapchat or whatever, but most people will likely
have 3 or more messaging apps.

3 years ago, everything was fine. Google used XMPP. Facebook used XMPP.
Companies used XMPP. I used XMPP. I may have needed multiple accounts, but I
needed only a single app. Now look where we are.

~~~
blueskin_
I have on my phone:

Standard text messaging

ConnectBot (to an irssi session for IRC)

The answer is just to say no when people ask you install $appoftheday to
contact them. No hangouts, no skype, no whatsapp, no facebook polluting my
phone with their intrusiveness and always-on-in-background tendencies. One
person occasionally asks me to install Whatsapp, but each time I say no.

Hangouts is a pain to remove if it came in your ROM, but you can still freeze
it with Titanium Backup.

~~~
briandear
I'm curious how many people in the real world actually use IRC. Find 10 people
on the streets of New York and statistically zero use IRC and maybe, maybe 1
has even heard of it. Ask those same 10 people if they've heard of WhatsApp
and likely 3 or 4 would have heard of it and probably 2 would have it on their
device. If they're from outside the US, that number would go up to likely 7
would have it installed. Ask those same 10 people if they've ever heard of
Skype and all 10 would say yes and likely 8 of them have used it.

Obviously this isn't scientific, but the point is that most people don't use
IRC. I'm a software dev and I don't use IRC and I've never had a real-world
non-dev even mention it. But Skype? I'm forced to use that every day. Text
messages? With iMessage, it's great, but you also need to have the person's
phone number -- or, you're like me and you're moving around a lot and change
numbers fairly frequently, but Skype/iMessage/etc stays pretty consistent year
after year.

Just my 2 cents. In terms of "always on intrusiveness" isn't SMS always on?
Unless you're using a burner phone, you're being tracked, SMS is always
logged, there's no illusion of security.

Besides, who the heck buys a phone is Hangouts imbedded in ROM? If you're
interested in security, then I'd suggest getting something other than Android.

~~~
blueskin_
Sure, SMS is always on, but it doesn't have access to my camera or mic. I have
Skype on my desktops (although I haven't used it in over a year) where I can
tell when it's running and where it doesn't bind itself to autostart whenever
someone breathes. The main problem with apps is _what_ they request access to
and, barring modding your phone with XPrivacy (I've done it, but not an option
for the average user), there's no way to deny those permissions.

As for IRC, it isn't _how many_ people use it, but _who_ uses it; namely a
huge proportion of technical communities and people I want to communicate
with.

As for Hangouts, it's in the default OEM ROMs, obviously, but also in the
gapps packaged for CyanogenMod unless you remove it before flashing (as I
did).

------
gurkendoktor
Am I such an outlier if I use Skype for business, not for leisure? I have
clients on three continents and every single one used Skype to communicate
about the project. Skype was generally running on every machine as a
"watercooler chat"/IRC replacement. Just open groups, give them names and pin
them to the sidebar. Done.

So I really expected this to be more secure, more portable and LESS designer-
driven. Who is even narcissistic enough to use a sidebar that is a giant,
high-res portrait of oneself?!

Maybe a Slack/HipChat/... killer for boutique agencies?

~~~
gcb0
i like to joke there are two types of tech companies, mutually exclusive.

\- profit driven

\- investor money driven

skype is a profit company. wire is clearly investor money driven.

So while your example is valid, i don't think they want to displace the
corporate consumer that creates the bulky of skype profit. It probably wants
to go after the users that uses snapchat/wasup/etc for free, with little
revenue besides what is necessary for a "revenue" round A/B/C/IPO deck, and
get investor money/get acquired.

PS: while skype is a consumer product, its job is not to drive revenue, but to
advertise the corporate solution: Lync. Lync gets microsoft 2bi/yr, while
skype peak at 600m/yr in a good year. 600m sounds good, but not when you paid
over 8bi for it.

~~~
danyork
And curiously, Microsoft is replacing "Lync" with "Skype for Business"....
although I'm not sure if that is a simple renaming of the existing client.

~~~
gcb0
aparently it is just a rename. i don't deal with any clients that use it
anymore, but last i heard they are just adding lync support to skype, and
decided to kill one of the brands. cleverly they killed lync.

~~~
MichaelGG
They did say they would make the Lync client more like Skype. Which is insane,
as Skype is one of the worst pieces of software I use on a day-to-day basis.
Lync is a far cleaner, nicer, client.

Also, ffs, "Skype for Business".

------
joeyspn
No, the Skype killer has another name: WebRTC. And Wire seems like _yet
another closed-source_ GUI making use of the WebRTC stack. I honestly prefer
FOSS solutions: Tox, oTalk, Jitsi, etc... oTalk looks really promising

~~~
amandine
What about matrix.org who's trying to fix the fragmentation by providing an
open standardized signalling layer for WebRTC? Might interest you too! We've
been working on integrating with Jitsi, although not finished yet

~~~
joeyspn
Nice project. Have you hear about OpenPeer? They're doing a similar thing...
providing an open standardized signalling (P2P) layer for WebRTC...

[http://openpeer.org/](http://openpeer.org/)

~~~
amandine
Yes we're in touch with them. Matrix and Open Peer are complementary
technologies - Matrix is focused entirely on the client/server use-case for
messaging between always-on persistent federated messaging stores. Open Peer
is obviously focused on adhoc p2p messaging without much persistent serverside
history.

------
ponyous
Oh its everywhere! Except... Windows, Linux, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, Web...

iOS, OS X and Android is far from everywhere.

~~~
LukaD
I can understand why they wouldn't support Linux/Blackberry/WP. As a Linux
user I'm used to that. But not having windows support? Really?

~~~
lmedinas
For Windows probably will be the Browser extension/addon which according to
other comments will be using WebRTC.

~~~
locusm
They are releasing a full Windows client soon.

------
flexie
Skype has video chat. So far Wire only has audio. Skype can call a regular
phone or receive calls from a regular phone. It seems like Wire can't, yet.
Skype has all my contacts, Wire has none, yet.

Let's call it a Skype killer if it kills Skype. Not yet.

~~~
return0
even my browser has video chat , basically a lot more than that (e.g.
[https://github.com/muaz-khan/WebRTC-Experiment](https://github.com/muaz-
khan/WebRTC-Experiment))

------
mrsaint
Something here I don't understand. First, the terms state that there are two
kinds of governing laws: One for those using the service outside the US, and
one for those from the US. This is the first time I see a supposedly non-US
company applying two different laws. Also, if you go through the terms, you
see that basically any legal aspect is governed by the County of San
Francisco, California. Why not Switzerland where the company was supposedly
formed and is located in?

Second, as of right now, there is no mentioning of a "Wire Swiss GmbH" in the
Swiss commercial registry. That's quite severe because under Swiss law, you
are not allowed to represent to the outside a juristic person as long as it is
not in the official registry.

Here is the link to the registry:

[http://zefix.ch/zfx-
cgi/hrform.cgi/hraPage?alle_eintr=on&per...](http://zefix.ch/zfx-
cgi/hrform.cgi/hraPage?alle_eintr=on&pers_sort=original&pers_num=0&language=4&col_width=366&amt=007)

~~~
AhtiK
The Mac App Store app [1] is submitted by "Zeta Project Swiss GmbH" which does
exist in the registry [2].

[1]
[https://itunes.apple.com/app/wire/id931134707?mt=12](https://itunes.apple.com/app/wire/id931134707?mt=12)

[2]
[http://www.hrazg.ch/webservices/inet/HRG/HRG.asmx/getHRGHTML...](http://www.hrazg.ch/webservices/inet/HRG/HRG.asmx/getHRGHTML?chnr=1704011490&amt=170&toBeModified=0&validOnly=0&lang=4&sort=0)

~~~
mrsaint
Interesting. Judging from this LinkedIn page [1], Wire Swiss GmbH has been
around since at least March 2014, and has between 50-200 employees [2]. My
guess: they renamed Zeta Project to Wire, but didn't want to wait with the
announcement until it's updated in the registry?

Still not sure what's up with the two governing laws.

[1] [https://www.linkedin.com/pub/pierrine-
auberson/5a/70a/537](https://www.linkedin.com/pub/pierrine-
auberson/5a/70a/537) [2]
[https://www.linkedin.com/company/4836762](https://www.linkedin.com/company/4836762)

------
deanclatworthy
> Wire interactions are secure and we comply with European privacy laws and
> regulations.

Which basically means as soon as a warrant is sent from pretty much any
European government they'll hand over all your conversations. The support
article doesn't give any detail whatsoever on how they encrypt your
conversations: [https://support.wire.com/hc/en-us/articles/203122500-Are-
mes...](https://support.wire.com/hc/en-us/articles/203122500-Are-messages-and-
calls-encrypted-)

It's a shame companies can't be held accountable for advertising their
services as secure, for false advertising.

~~~
blumkvist
Huh? Which company will not give records if subpoenaed?

PS: Of course companies can be held accountable for false advertising. You can
take them to court yourself.

~~~
netheril96
The company that does not have records to begin with, when the encryption is
truly end-to-end.

------
alandarev
Skype killer? Granted most Skype users are Windows PC users, how an
application not available for Windows can threaten Skype?

~~~
vog
While I agree that "Skype killer" is a hyperbole, I guess the idea is that the
"Windows PC" people will switch to using their smart phone instead. Also,
there is a "Browser - coming soon" button, indicating that they do target
larger computers in a portable way.

------
warcode
"Skype-killers" without end-to-end encryption are useless.

~~~
beaner
This is really all I want as well. There's tons of pretty messaging apps.
Style isn't enough to sway me anymore - I want privacy. How hard is it to make
a messaging app that makes encryption its #1 priority?

~~~
Omniusaspirer
I've been following Tox with some interest. It's fairly new but fully open
source, decentralized, end-to-end encryption, no account needed (people added
via their unique bytestring).

[https://tox.im/](https://tox.im/)

~~~
Xylemon
Tox has interested me more since it's inception, mainly because it's open
source and completely relies on peer to peer connections. I've seen some other
open source alternatives that aren't as light weight and still centralized to
some degree. Wire, if it really wants to be a "Skype killer" in my opinion,
should go open source and be more reassuring about how they are protecting our
privacy.

------
salimmadjd
The UI is beautiful. However, differentiating on UI for an app that's about
communication can only take you so far. I think some users will be initially
wowed by all the nice colors etc. but the app is about chatting, sending
images, text and taking, and no amount of beautiful color is going to impact
that.

I know how long it takes to make things pretty, I'm wondering if this was a
right decision vs. investing their time on something else that is more core to
their value (communication).

I think there is a lot of room to innovate around ease of communication,
texting, chatting, etc. on the mobile space and we'll see more apps and
probably another $Billon exit.

edit: typo

------
hagsteel
This was probably a big effort from the people who developed Wire.

I'm sure lots of development time has gone in to the product with many
difficult problems to solve, so to all the developers of Wire: Good work!

It probably feels a bit defeating to spend all that time developing something
only to have people slating it.

That said: I do not think this app is for me. I wish it had a more compact
interface (like old Skype for OSX), before Skype became this large take-over-
the-screen app, and reading that it might not have video chat kind of kills it
for me.

------
nemasu
Hmm, no Linux client ... and you 'have' to set a picture when you register?
Really? I'm out.

~~~
aurora72
No OSX Lion compatibility too. And they've put it on App Store as if it's the
only way to distribute it. Looks like a BS.

~~~
josh64
Not many people seem to use Lion these days though. An app that I work on has
less than 6% (of the 13,000 users who have opted in to providing system stats)
on Lion.

------
AhtiK
Anyone who is interested in OTR (off the record) and peer to peer encryption,
Wire is not for you.

Please see
[https://otr.cypherpunks.ca/software.php](https://otr.cypherpunks.ca/software.php)
for suggestions which might be reliable as of today.

Everyone else who feels good about keeping their messages safely stored for
later inspection, use Wire or any other chat client that "looks beautiful",
"is pure" and blends yt videos nicely into your feed.

EDIT: Do not take my comment as a critique or sarcasm against Wire. There are
different audiences for messaging apps and it's important to understand if you
are the one before being negative about privacy policy and encryption.

~~~
kashif
For off the record try -
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.hushes](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.hushes)

------
72deluxe
All the comments on here are very witty. This Wire app is only available for
iOS and recent versions of Android (no joy for me on 4.1 on my obviously
ANCIENT Xperia S that still functions fine), and only available for OSX. Great
for me on OSX but not for my chums on Windows. Buying a Mac makes for an
expensive application price, no?

But in all seriousness I recall having great IM with MSN Messenger about 15
years ago, and despite the incessant barrage of replacement apps, there is
still no one leader. Sure, we now have Facetime so I can irritate my mum at
all times of the day but that's no good for my brother on Windows. And I find
Skype to be a massive battery hog on my laptop, and an advert-infested mess on
Windows.

Is anyone else like me, and just sticking to SMS and emails? The other day on
a BBC News article it mentioned "if you're a bit old fashioned and use
email"... but I think email is great because you can archive it offline (I
have useful emails from years ago) and it can also be used in court I think.

IM logs - are they evidence in court? All the old chat logs get tidied up from
all the IM systems I come across, so there is no referring back to old
messages, or a paper trail.

EDIT: I'm getting downvoted, not sure why? In all seriousness is email really
broken that we need another IM system? Obviously the lack of video calling is
a big problem....

------
nikolak
It's not everywhere, it has no video chat, and nobody uses it. If it somehow
manages to "kill" anything it definitely won't be Skype.

------
ozcanesen
Privacy agreements just a word without cryptographic technology background as
supporter.

Also "everwhere" not means "ios, osx, android". where is windows and linux
desktop clients, even skype supports linux desktops today.

~~~
phillc73
I'm most surprised to see a new application launch without a Windows client.
Is this a conscious marketing decision to not target the Windows user market?
Is the market share of iOS, Android and OSx enough for these guys to succeed
without a Windows client? The website notes that a browser client is coming
soon, but nothing for native Windows.

~~~
jarin
I'm pretty sure it just means that the developers at the company primarily use
Macs.

------
skratlo
They won't use a standard protocol even if it makes lots of sense for the
users. For them, they fear being commoditized as a result of using a standard.
Same reason why Hangouts will stop being available through XMPP anytime soon.
It's very sad that these companies are so short-sighted, and can only think of
small profit for themselves.

------
NKCSS
"Wire is everywhere!"

\- No windows phone client :P

~~~
ethana
Or Windows for that matter.

------
Macha
To contact everyone I know I need:

* Skype

* XMPP

* Hangouts

* AIM

* YIM

* SMS

* Facebook

* IRC

* Viber (which I don't use, because yet another client was too much when all these people had other clients anyway).

Another client is just a no go at this stage. I'm still annoyed at Skype
blocking both multiple network IM clients I used (imo first, then when they
dropped the whole "multiple network" part, IM+).

~~~
e12e
Wow, AIM's not dead? With the stuff happening at Yahoo, one would think they
might just go ahead and move to XMPP (and enable server federation for good
measure...).

BTW: If you have XMPP anyway, you can use that for chat.facebook.com. Shame
with Hangouts. But everyone wants their golden silo, I guess.

~~~
Macha
A bunch of my US friends started using about 6-7 years ago because it would
send them texts when there weren't actively signed in. They're still using it.

------
a3_nm
Sadly, it seems as proprietary and centralized as Skype is.

------
EwanG
Amusing, given their past history with Skype, that this is not available for
Windows Phone. Which is too bad as my SO carries a Lumia 1020 and if she can't
use it I can't really use it either.

------
johnchristopher
A `Skype killer` not available on Windows computer ?

That's not going to kill Skype.

------
thechut
Wondering why the Android app is 'incompatible' with my Nexus 6. Where can I
get the APK?

~~~
mawburn
Probably just their settings. I installed on a Nexus 5 with Lollipop just
fine.

------
dcre
Weird that no one here is talking about voice quality, which was what stood
out to me as most interesting about the product. I've wondered for a while
why, if we can handle something as high-bandwidth as video chat, we can't do
higher-fidelity audio chat over data.

But I just tried it and it sounded more or less the same as a normal cell
voice call. Also the UI is pretty but slow-feeling on Android. I have a
feeling it's smoother on iOS. Disappointing.

~~~
melq
Could the quality of the phone's microphone be the reason for the low-fi voice
audio?

~~~
dcre
It's possible, but I doubt it. The person on the other end was using a Nexus
6. I don't know first-hand how its microphone is, but I know my (high-end
Android) phone can record voice memos with much higher sound quality than I
typically hear from a phone call.

------
lesingerouge
Having some slight experience in the publishing and content industry, any
title that contains the word "killer" is for me a big fat sign for "bulls#$t".
I will still pick trusted recommendations[1] over advertising any day.

[1] [https://www.eff.org/secure-messaging-
scorecard](https://www.eff.org/secure-messaging-scorecard)

------
chdir
That domain name would have been one expensive purchase. I wonder if there's
any significant correlation between buying an expensive domain upfront &
success rate.

That aside, It has spent most of it's life being parked with ads.
[https://web.archive.org/web/*/wire.com](https://web.archive.org/web/*/wire.com)

~~~
johnward
I often wonder about price when I see great domain names like this. Sometimes
they seem to boost the product and many times it doesn't matter. I saw a post
on reddit about examine.com. I think the guy said he paid like 40k for the
domain and he believes it was a big part of why they were growing. He
basically said that he had money from previous business selling and he figured
even if the site didn't work out the domain name would get him back most of
that money if not more if he had to resell it.

~~~
SoloX5
That's me!

~~~
johnward
oh hai. So was what I said correct? When I had money I used to scarf up domain
names for any idea I had. Some of them were decent but I don't think I've ever
sold a single one. Eventually just let them all expire after holding them for
like 6 years.

~~~
SoloX5
Yup 100%. Worst case, I could have still turned it around and immediately sold
it for 25k. If I was more patient, likely 35k.

To me, ignoring the opportunity cost of the cash itself, it was a ~10k risk.
Worth it.

------
julianpye
What Skype has and what any of the newcomer will struggle to get is my
extended family. My mum and dad, lots of uncles and aunts, some of which over
80 year old all use Skype every day.

It is a big challenge to move any of these people to new technology, even if
it would offer a real advantage for them, which no real newcomer does at the
moment.

------
espitia
I'm glad. Skype for iOS has so many bugs it is incredible.

------
algorithm_dk
From my initial investigation they have some <bad> code behind, race
conditions and I think I found a place where it's leaking the IP of the guy
you're calling. I'll post my findings later. Messages are sent over SSL but
not encrypted in any other way, so they can read them :)

------
noelwelsh
Skype has kinda been the hot potato company that everyone wanted to buy but,
once acquired, no-one could figure out how to actually make money from. Will
Wire be any different?

One argument is that is doesn't matter. Messaging is such an attractive market
that people just continue to invest in it. Telecos certainly didn't have any
problems making money back in their hay-day, and there is the "get all the
eyeballs and monetize later" argument that is still popular. Perhaps as
consumers we're just doomed to switch platforms every 5-10 yrs as companies
rise and then fizzle out. Perhaps churn is the price we pay for free
messaging?

FWIW I did pay for Skype for a short while, as I needed some features, but
then their billing structure changed and other free products became popular so
I stopped.

------
Aardwolf
Why no download for Linux? Why is this always still happening?

If you want to make this thing really everywhere, then imho priority numbero 1
should be to rely on libraries that work everywhere - not just the latest
version of a select few OSes. It'll be easier to maintain in the future as
well.

~~~
feld
It's not year of Linux on the desktop yet, and never will be. Sorry.

------
lumberjack
I recently discovered SIP-based softphone software (ex. Ekiga). I works great,
is easy to use and completely free of charge and registration is minimal (you
just need a SIP account).

I really don't get why people would pay for Skype when there are better
alternatives around.

------
mrmondo
While I welcome more competition since Skype really gone down hill after being
bought by Microsoft, however this applications website doesn't give any useful
information on the encryption used - it would be good to see if it supports
OTR style encryption.

------
locusm
[https://twitter.com/wire/status/540139385660772352](https://twitter.com/wire/status/540139385660772352)

"Thank you for the good feedback on Wire. For Windows users — a full featured
version will be available soon."

------
Tepix
Is it just a coincidence that Skype changed their AUP last week, requesting a
license to all content transmitted via Skype (point 5.7 of their legalese)?
That ought to scare some people away. To Wire?

~~~
mdda
I don't see that Skype get a license to the content, only that you should have
the rights to distribute it ([http://www.skype.com/en/legal/tou-
usa/#5](http://www.skype.com/en/legal/tou-usa/#5)), and that they have the
right to "take it down" if they feel like it.

------
skc
I'm a little curious. I use Skype semi regularly and it seems to work just
fine for me.

But it seems everyone here hates it. Are there some "power user" features that
don't work well or something?

~~~
gurkendoktor
\- Impossible to grok as a network admin, as it aggressively tries to work on
EVERY network (even when only port 80 is available etc.) \- The transition
from P2P to centralised means that we enjoy all the downsides of a centralised
system (hello NSA) AND all the downsides of P2P (no reliable offline messages,
esp. with multiple devices) \- The iPhone version is 100% custom UI, looks and
acts like a Windows Phone app, and has dropped several features (App Store
reviews have not been very favourable) \- Closed source, non-sandboxed and
from a surveillance-friendly company \- A resource hog

That said, Wire looks like a complete non-starter to me.

------
espadrine
Two things of interest:

\- They use Scala on Android[1]

\- They plan on a full-browser version[2]; I assume it'll rely on WebRTC. The
fact that they don't indicate plans on a specific browser makes me happy.

[1]:
[http://jobdb.softgarden.de/jobdb/public/jobdb/posting/126982...](http://jobdb.softgarden.de/jobdb/public/jobdb/posting/126982/0/0/Scala+on+Android+Software+Developer.html)

[2]: [https://www.wire.com/download/](https://www.wire.com/download/)

------
yitchelle
Have anyone read more marketing speak than this website?

"It’s pure. With Wire you can easily move from messages and pictures to HD
voice. Wire’s pristine audio quality makes it feel as if the people you are
speaking to are right there with you."

I don't even know what this means? I mean, will quality still be "right there
with you" if the latency on the network is large? or if you phone is loaded
doing some task in the background?

So much of this kind of stuff is hard to guarantee because it is outside of
your control.

------
pretz
When showing off a brand new app with no existing userbase, _please_ show or
tell what your app _does_ before waxing poetic about its beauty. If it hadn't
been for the HN headline, I wouldn't have stayed on this page long enough to
see what the app did.

CORRECTION: I missed the intro animation when I opened the link in a
background tab, and somehow got left with a masthead image with just three
icons on a blank phone, not even the download link it showed after I
refreshed.

------
pearjuice
More fragmentation, great. I cannot help but think how this time I will again
convince my contacts to migrate to yet another messaging app. I should
probably ask the contacts on WhatsApp first. Or rather Telegram? I think some
people are still on Viber, too. My friends on Kik have just migrated from
Whatsapp so I will approach them last.

The app who can actually solve _this_ problem will be the next big thing. And
if doesn't work, we have yet another messaging app.

------
dzhiurgis
Skype is the most resource hungry app on my Mac. It deserves to die.

Unfortunately I am forced to resort using it whenever FaceTime fails. And that
happens approx. every 15nth call.

~~~
super_mario
Really? I use it on variety of Macs (2008 Mac Pro, 2011 27'' iMac, 2007 24''
iMac, 2008 Aluminum Macbook, 2011 17'' Macbook Pro) and it runs smoothly and
doesn't use much CPU at all on any of them. During video calls it will use
more CPU but that's somewhat expected (Factime video calls do too).

~~~
dzhiurgis
It beats Safari and Chrome by CPU time and packets sent by orders of
magnitude. Of course Chrome and Safari processes are separated nowadays, but
still they do have some central stuff.

------
spiritplumber
Are they going to have some kind of API? I loved being able to
programmatically send and read Skype messages on Android, until it stopped
working.

Also, will it work with Linphone?

~~~
michaelmior
I sure hope so. No decent API is my biggest gripe about Skype. We found Skype
to be a great team chat tool although it was frustrating not being able to
connect external services.

------
shapeshed
Good luck but I'm not really sure how this product is differentiating from
other bundled voip and messaging products other than better UX/UI.

Where is the revenue model and where are the open APIs into the service?
Messaging is becoming really saturated now. User experience might get you some
of the way there but interoperability with things outside your walled garden
is also important for success IMHO.

------
hfmurdoc
Top video is broken on Firefox. This has been happening more and more these
days; entire, diverse development teams and they're all on Chrome.

------
jagermo
No Windows-version? No killer.

------
crystaln
The most compelling feature of Skype was end-to-end encryption - that is
before Microsoft centralized the service, subjected it to man-in-the-middle
attacks, and partnered with the Chinese government to produce a back-doored
version Tom-Skype.

The app page says "Wire interactions are secure and we comply with European
privacy laws and regulations." That's just not enough.

~~~
AhtiK
Skype still has end-to-end encryption.

But Skype also has the private keys for every user which renders end-to-end
encryption "less useful". Sadly they have always had the keys, from the
beginning. Tom skype just made content more accessible to the "interested
parties".

------
steffandroid
Strange decision to solely target Android 4.4 and above, that means it's only
compatible with about 34% of Android devices.

~~~
Istof
I wonder which feature that they need that is only present in 4.4+

------
ape4
I like how Wire and Telegram are referencing old tech. I prediction the next
Skype killer will be called Morse or Flip Phone.

------
scalayer
Does anyone else feel like we're in the midst of another 1990's instant
messaging war? Except now with smartphones!

~~~
cJ0th
Yeah and this implies that people by and large still aren't tech savvy
(enough). This is very unfortunate as we have to use the software most people
are wiling to tolerate. Ironically, in most of my use cases e-mail is the best
solution for communication. It is based on widely accepted protocols [there is
an abundance of e-mail clients you can choose from without fearing
compatibility issues], delivery is (most of the time) almost instant and it is
up to you which provider you use (or you can even host an e-mail server
yourself). It's also good concerning encryption in that you can agree with
each of your contacts whether or not you want to use some form of it. In
contrast, messenger like Facebook don't give you a choice and OTR is not
something everyone is willing to learn about.

------
dzohrob
Can anyone explain to me what "full democracy" means in this context? From the
page:

"It’s on. Wire is perfect for staying connected with any group. Create a
conversation, name it as you wish, and add people — your groups will be taking
off whether they’re about work, family or fun. Oh, and Wire groups are full
democracy."

------
ps4fanboy
Not surprised this is from ex-Skype people, no desktop. Quality isnt something
I have attached to the skype brand.

------
Smrchy
Nice first impression. Some issues though: No video chat. That's the main
thing i use skype for. Sound goes through my Macs default settings. I can
change the microphone to my headset but not the output. If i change the output
to headset it will also change this for my music which is annoying.

------
hudo
If they put "win client coming soon, sign up for updates" to get how many
people even want it, that would be at least something. But this "only ios and
android" philosophy, i just don't get it. What kind of smart business decision
has to be to rule out 80-90% of users!?

------
krick
I understand it's their business and all, but I don't see why we need one more
not-opensource messenger app. As we don't have enough. Sure, somebody will use
it, but it's all about marketing now and I only can hope they'll fail. Nothing
interesting here.

------
dang
Also
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8692427](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8692427)
and
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8692140](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8692140).

------
rattray
Unless I'm missing something, this seems to be voice, IM, and multimedia only
- no video chat.

~~~
akurilin
I was going to say, I was expecting an app with a significantly better video
chat experience, since that's what most people associate the word "Skype"
with, not instant messaging.

------
csomar
I signed up and downloaded the app (android).

1\. The App uses different non-standard patterns. It's really a pain to use
and navigate. 2\. The design is cool and I like it. 3\. I should be able to
find users by ID or similar.

Who wants to test this thing can add me (contact -at- omarabid.com )

~~~
sly010
4\. You can't seem to actually call phones, which is why everyone uses Skype.
Or did I miss something?

Notably, all videochat apps makes desktops super hot while their mobile
equivalent works fine. My humble guess is because on iOS/Android they are
using the hardware accelerated codecs (due to the lack of other options),
while on desktop they just assume the CPU can do everything. I will be
interested to see how Wire performs in that regard.

I am doing a lot telecommuting and have a frequently remote relationship, so I
try a bunch of these apps. Here is the thing: I don't care about beautiful
interfaces when it comes to full screen videochat.

So far the best experience I had was with oovoo, which was simultaneously the
ugliest software at the time. Perhaps Wire will be successful for the same
reason Slack is: it just works (I have yet to see).

------
rcarmo
_sigh_ it seems I'll eventually have to update this:

[http://the.taoofmac.com/space/blog/2014/11/13/0830#the-
insta...](http://the.taoofmac.com/space/blog/2014/11/13/0830#the-instant-mess-
we-re-in)

------
liotier
Documented open protocol or GTFO !

------
jkaljundi
Some background: [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/03/wire-
commu...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/03/wire-
communications-skype-janus-friis-app)

------
rip747
how is this a Skype killer? Not for nothing, but for $2.99 a month I can
anywhere with Skype. There is no information on the site about pricing,
coverage or restrictions.

Maybe I'm not the majority of Skype users, but I use Skype as a replacement
for a second phone in my office. I'm not using it as a messager, picture/video
uploader or whatever else this thing does, again, I'm using it as a low cost
phone line.

From what I see on the website, I can see this competing with SnapChat,
Instagram or whatever other messaging client, but not Skype.

------
TheMagicHorsey
The title of this article is hipster-bait. Someone claims something is a
Skype-killer while not supporting 95% of Skype users (who are on PCs). Its
ridiculous on the face of it.

------
egrepnix
Personally I'll wait for Hemlis ([http://heml.is](http://heml.is)) to be
released (even if it doesn't do everything Wire does).

------
vjvj
We should all just get over our prejudices and download BBM which is the
closest app to a Skype killer that I've used. Don't knock it until you've
tried it.

------
mrkris
I'd love to replace my company Skype with a client/service that has an API,
that I can script bots for, and has great support for both mobile and desktop.

------
anon4
A skype killer... that doesn't run on windows or linux.

~~~
hactually
I read the blurb, liked the look and thought "why not?". I clicked download
and don't see Linux, or even a browser option. It's not a skype killer - it's
more prettier Whatsapp alternative without the market share.

Honestly, if whatsapp did a browser/desktop client I'd be on that before this
even got a second look

------
tobych
This sentence on the App Store page needs fixing: "Wire works on iOS and OS X,
it is inspired by and developed for the latest in hardware."

------
zecg
Marketing, marketing everywhere. Is the protocol open?

------
JulianMorrison
"This app is incompatible with all your devices"

Well, then.

------
imron
I'll sure it'll be great... just like the original Skype - and then they'll
sell it again and it will get worse.

------
andrew_clapham
Installed on Android. I went to invite a friend to try it out, there is no
invite or share feature. Hope this helps!

------
skrowl
Skype Killer... No Windows client.

Oh Hacker News, you do realize that very few people actually use Macs in the
business world, right?

------
jbb555
Horrible website

~~~
zl4000
Yeah, I can't believe this crap has become de-facto web design.

~~~
diminish
I am also stunned by the horrible usability of the web site. Who really
inspires those people to make many UX mistake on one simple page?

------
ulfw
Why does Skype needs to be 'killed' by ex-Skype people again and how does that
benefit consumers exactly?

------
Nanjingguy
So many colors....and so much text. Are there any pictures at all? Or is my
Chinese internet just too slow?

------
pisarzp
The UI may look pretty, but its totally unusable for me. It took me ages to
figure out how to make a call.

------
schnable
The first selling point is "it's beautiful?" That's not selling anything.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The first selling point is "it's beautiful?" That's not selling anything.

Its selling aesthetics rather than function, which may not be important to
you, but it may be important to the customer they think they want to target.

------
13
Doesn't require a mobile number to sign up, that's new.

Privacy policy is predictably gritty though.

------
mrtimuk
..and _please_ let there be decent keyboard shortcuts (I'm looking at you,
Skype)

------
incidence
On Linux google hangouts voice call quality is much better than Skype's

------
ugdev
Actually it is not that hard to create a better product than Skype. Skype
sucks in so many ways that i wouldn't know where to beginn. Exchange
developers, exchange the designer and the UI team. Hate it - but use it every
single day.

------
sly010
Am I the only one who realised there is no videochat in Wire?

------
VieElm
This site looks broken with EFF's HTTPS everywhere.

------
fit2rule
Anyone know why it won't run on a Nexus 7 tablet?

------
lowlevel
No video and no win32/64\. Skype wins by default.

------
warrenmiller
Could they not get any more Hipsters on that page?

~~~
sergiotapia
I know right. I guess that's their target demo.

------
phmagic
Good case of veneer design vs functional design.

------
Zaheer
Anyone know the stack they're running?

------
jhonnycano
seems buggy to me when you can't even register to the platform :(

------
sanketbajoria
I will definitely try this

------
aet
Where is the pricing?

~~~
jkaljundi
It's free.

------
huslage
Talko? Blah blah.

------
errordeveloper
Terrific.

------
hyperliner
iPad only? I am out.

