[27] On 17 June 2013, Skype released a free video messaging services for Windows, Mac OS, iOS, iPadOS, Android, and BlackBerry.

[39] Later that year, Gurdeep Singh Pall, Corporate Vice President of Skype, announced that Microsoft had acquired the technology from Talko.

[45][46] On 5 June 2017, Microsoft announced its plans to revamp Skype with similar features to Snapchat, allowing users to share temporary copies of their photos and video files.

[47] In late June 2017, Microsoft rolled out their latest update for iOS, incorporating a revamped design and new third-party integrations, with platforms including Gfycat, YouTube, and UpWorthy.

New user registrations associated with a Microsoft account are assigned a username with a live: prefix followed by an autogenerated alphanumeric string.

SkypeIn, service allows Skype users to receive calls on their computers dialed by conventional phone subscribers to a local Skype phone number; local numbers are available for Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Nepal, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Skype supports conference calls, video chats, and screen sharing between 25 people at a time for free,[62] which then increased to 50 on 5 April 2019.

[63] Skype does not provide the ability to call emergency numbers, such as 112 in Europe, 911 in North America, 999 in the UK or 100 in India and Nepal.

[65] The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has ruled that, for the purposes of section 255 of the Telecommunications Act, Skype is not an "interconnected VoIP provider".

[67] In 2019, Skype added an option to blur the background in a video chat interface using AI algorithms purely done using software, despite a depth-sensing camera not being present in most webcams.

[104][105] On 24 March 2016, Skype announced that the integrated applications did not satisfy most users' needs and announced that they and the desktop client would eventually be replaced with a new UWP application,[106] which was released as a preview version for the Windows 10 Anniversary Update and dubbed as the stable version with the release of the Windows 10 Creators Update.

[119] The Senao SN358+ long-range (10–15 km) cordless phone was discontinued due to loss of licenses to participate in the Skype network as peers.

While the specific detection methods used by these companies are often private, Pearson's chi-squared test and naive Bayes classification are two approaches that were published in 2008.

[138] However, it is impossible to verify that these algorithms are used correctly, completely, and at all times, as there is no public review possible without a protocol specification and/or the program's source code.

[144] Several media sources reported that at a meeting about the "Lawful interception of IP based services" held on 25 June 2008, high-ranking unnamed officials at the Austrian interior ministry said that they could listen in on Skype conversations without problems.

[152] Sometime before Skype was sold in 2009, the company had started Project Chess, a program to explore legal and technical ways to easily share calls with intelligence agencies and law enforcement.

[...] The purpose of Eurojust's coordination role is to overcome the technical and judicial obstacles to the interception of internet telephony systems, taking into account the various data protection rules and civil rights.

"[154] In November 2010, a flaw was disclosed to Skype that showed how computer crackers could secretly track any user's IP address.

[159] In November 2012, Skype was reported to have handed over user data of a pro-WikiLeaks activist to Dallas, Texas-based private security company iSIGHT Partners without a warrant or court order.

The Microsoft query used the full URL supplied in the IM conversation and was generated by a previously undocumented security service.

[164] The 2013 mass surveillance disclosures revealed that agencies such as the NSA and the FBI have the ability to eavesdrop on Skype, including the monitoring and storage of text and video calls and file transfers.

[165][166][167] The PRISM surveillance program, which requires FISA court authorization, reportedly has allowed the NSA unfettered access to its data center supernodes.

[177] According to the Australian Federal Police, overseas pedophiles are directing child sex abuse using its live streaming services.

[180][181] Niklas Zennström, then chief executive of Skype, told reporters that TOM "had implemented a text filter, which is what everyone else in that market is doing.

[181][183][184] Research on the TOM-Skype venture has revealed information about blacklisted keyword checks, allowing censorship and surveillance of its users.

[185] According to reports from the advocacy group Great Fire, Microsoft has modified censorship restrictions and ensured encryption of all user information.

[citation needed] Skype comes bundled with the following locales and languages: Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Nepali, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian and European), Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.

[189] Due to an outage on September 21, 2015 that affected several users in New Zealand, Australia, and other countries, Skype decided to compensate their customers with 20 minutes of free calls to over 60 landline and 8 mobile phone destinations.

[190] Although Skype is a commercial product, its non-paid version is used with increasing frequency among teachers, schools, and charities interested in global education projects.

[192][193][194][195] The video conferencing aspect of the software has been praised for its ability to connect students who speak different languages, facilitate virtual field trips, and engage directly with experts.