14 DAY TRIAL // Skype is finally able to breath easily and focus on the service, now that all its legal troubles are behind it. The company is doing alright in terms of revenue and great in terms of users, at around half a billion there's nothing to complain, but with increased competition, especially from Google, it's time to step up its game. Skype has now released a new beta version of its PC client for Windows which comes with a couple of interesting new features and a very nice surprise, support for Google Chrome.
One of the biggest 'new' features is call transfers which allows users to, well, transfer calls to any Skype contact or to external connections. The feature isn't exactly new as it has been previously available, though it was removed at some point. Now call transfers are free between Skype users and are taxed at the standard rates for calls to mobiles or landlines.
Another new feature, if you can call it that, is Skype Access which allows users to connect to paid WiFi connections using Skype Credit. Skype says the feature is available with 100,000 hotspots worldwide. The main advantage of using Skype to pay rather than the usual route, besides not having to fill out all sorts of credit card data, is that you'll pay by the minute for the access. It's not going to be huge deal for most Skype users, but if you find yourself constantly using paid wireless connections, Skype Access could end up saving you a few bucks.
The latest version comes with the usual bug fixes and several new features and should be stable enough for most people to use it. The new beta also makes Google Chrome users happy as the browser finally has an official Skype plugin to go along with the Internet Explorer and Firefox plugins already available. It only works with the stable version of Chrome, currently 3.0.195.33, and is still in beta, but Skype says it will support the latest Chrome 4.0 builds soon enough.
Skype 4.2 Beta for Windows is available for download here. Google Chrome 3.0.195.33 stable for Windows is available for download here.