The Most Popular Skype Extras - The Best Plugins for Skype (Review)

Skype would not be as hugely popular as it is now without its plugins. They emerged one after another, but for a long time existed as wild entities, separately from Skype. It was not until the first beta of version 3.0 that Skype finally adopted such plug-in modules for extending its features by adding Extras Manager. In the beginning, just a few plugins for Skype were available, but soon their numbers started to grow rapidly. Let's consider some popular plugins, shall we?

Sketch Pad

"Let me draw it to you!" you may say to a friend after failing to explain her in plain words how to find your place. Just select your friend's name from your contact list and invite her to use Sketch Pad together with you. She will see what you are drawing, and will be able to add something to the picture too. The drawing tools are very simple: pen, eraser, lines, figures, and color palette. Sketch Pad is a multi-page image editor. You can easily save any page, and then reopen it any time if you want to complete it.

Unyte Application Sharing

This plugin is more sophisticated — something between a remote administration tool and Windows Remote Assistance. It's a good choice if you need to show a friend or colleague how to use some program or to get assistance from an expert. What's important, the invited person can intervene in what is going on on the remotely administered computer. Now he can not only draw images or edit documents, but control the computer too.

Skype Recorder

Skype Recorder is not just an ordinary plugin but a must-have for recording audio conversations. It can run automatically, compress audio into the MP3 format (needless to say, it can save audio as WAV too, not too speak of other formats), record mono or stereo, and intercept not only PC-PC and PC-Phone conversations, but skypecasts too. Its ability to stay invisible makes it a great spying tool (I'm just kidding. Or maybe not?).

Skylook

If you need a high-quality email-and-contacts organizer, Skylook is your best choice. This plugin will be especially useful for business people who use Microsoft Outlook as their primary means of communication. It packs a handy voice mail, answering machine, SMS informer, and many other great features.

TranSkype

This plugin lets you automatically translate text messages from one language to another. TranSkype currently supports 14 languages. To translate a message on the fly, press Shift + Enter.