Skype for Android speeds up but still makes too much noise

Skype for Android wasn't slow to begin with, and the latest update makes it start up a bit faster.

That was the good news.

What didn't change: the interface is unnecessary clumsy. The tabs that made navigating the app easy and efficient disappeared a long time ago, and having to pass the start screen with the four big icons gets annoying real quick.

And then there's the noise! When you launch Skype it makes a deafening startup sound. The dialpad tones can wake up the dead. The shutdown sound makes logging out quietly impossible. And there's no way to switch off those useless decibels!

So I fired up Titanium backup and restored my vintage Skype version 1.0.0.983. It doesn't have the snazzy video goodies of the latest edition, but that's a small price to pay. My Skype Classic has tabs for easy navigation, and it only makes noise when I receive a call or message. And anyway, Skype is on its way to become a relic of the past now that Vonage, Viber, and Google Voice are all over the place and standard SIP VoIP comes preloaded on all new Android phones. And for Skype Chat we have imo. Guess what? imo does voice calls too!

Microsoft, your purchase needs some patching up or it will become as insignificant as your mobile operating system.

• Skype (Google Play)
• skype.com
• Skype 1.0.0.983 (on i-Pmart, a site with a dark side, beware of the dog)

What do you look at, what do you look like?

Just stumbled upon a Blogspot screen full of stats. What are you looking at? This:

1.
SetVsel: overclock and undervolt your Motorola Defy
Is the Motorola Defy really that popular? Well, speeding things up always helps.

2.
Bloat Freezer abuses Airpush ads to blackmail you
Nobody likes to get scammed. It looks like the fraud called Trey Holland has many enemies. He deserves all of them.

3.
DroidWall has leaky boots
It's not DroidWalls fault that Google made Android leaky by design. Still, a firewall that lets things slip on boot asks for a fix. Google, wake up!

4.
Google apps on GetJar
This one came as a surprise. On second thought, I guess there must be millions of devices out there that don't run the Android Market Google Play Store.

5.
Ad blocker shootout: AdAway vs. AdFree
Nobody likes ads. Psychologists discovered that advertising really stresses us out, and that blocking ads improves your health. If you don't see ads on this page it means your ad blocker is doing its job ;)

6.
Make your battery last longer without dumbing down your smartphone
Your 22nd century smartphone is powered by a 19th century battery.

7.
The "read phone state and identity" permission should be split
Does Google care about your privacy? Of course not!

8.
ES File Explorer now has Dropbox and unpacks RAR files
I'm not alone in thinking this is Androids best file manager to date.

9.
VoIP app Viber adds off switch, but still thinks you're too stupid to control autostart
Launching at boot without an off switch? That may work on an iPhone, but the Android crowd doesn't need to be taken by the hand.

10.
Alternative Grooveshark app shootout: Dood's Music Streamer versus TinyShark
Free music always goes down well.

Other trivia: you're probably american, german, or english. India, France, and The Netherlands are represented pretty well too. Your surfboard is called Firefox or Chrome, you avoid Internet Explorer like the plague, and only 1% of you uses Iron. Let's kick that number up, because Iron is way better than Chrome. Almost two thirds of you runs Windows, 22% rides the waves on Android (maybe I should make a mobile version of this site?), and you probably found this blog by searching Google.

Is that you?

App drawer spam: Facebook and others

Update: looks like Facebook agrees that adding junk icons was a bad move, because they disappeared from the next edition of the app.

The latest Facebook update doesn't just kill some bugs and add some features to the Facebook app, it also violates the "one app, one icon" rule.

Facebook is not the only one. GO Launcher fills your app drawer with a handful of icons, including one that takes you to the GO Store where you probably don't want to go. And Google Maps comes with junk like Latitude for which in-app access is apparently not enough, so it makes your app drawer even more cluttered than it already is.

Ray of light: GO Launcher lets you hide all the app drawer icons that you don't want to see.

So what's new in Facebook? There's an extra camera icon in your app drawer to shoot pics straight to Facebook, because the share menu in your camera app and gallery don't cut it for the Facebook beancounters. The messaging service of Facebook wasn't used enough for Facebooks tastes either, so in comes an extra icon. Both extra icons point to the same Facebook app where the normal Facebook icon already takes you.

As for the Facebook app itself, it sucked and it still sucks. You're better of with the mobile website instead. For Facebook Messenger there are plenty of excellent multi-network IM apps out there, such as imo.

Update: looks like Facebook agrees that adding junk icons was a bad move, because they disappeared from the next edition of the app.

• m.facebook.com (way better than the app)

Lucky Patcher removes Google ads from Android apps

Android has a hosts file just like Windows and Linux, so you can clean up your apps and web browsing by blocking the banner farms that compete for screen estate with the real content you're after. Since just about every advertiser out there tries to follow all your moves on the internet you have another good reason to take countermeasures.

But what if you want to clean up your apps without editing your hosts file?

Enter Lucky Patcher. This smart app strips the code that downloads Google ads out of your apps, so your screen and your privacy are a little less abused by AdMob, AdSense, and the other Google banner farms that don't just show ads but try to track your location as well (which hammers your GPS, which sucks your battery dry).

Lucky Patcher can also remove the license verification of paid apps. You could download a paid app, backup and patch the APK, return it within the 15 minute window for a refund, and continue to use it with the license check yanked out. But this is pure piracy. You have to draw the line somewhere, so don't go any further than ad removal.

• Lucky Patcher from chelpus