Serious question - what's the best replacement? I would love to move away from Skype, mainly because they have removed the ability to add a phone number to your contacts.

For some reason, MS has removed the ability to add a phone number to an existing contact in Skype. If you want to make a call you have to enter the number again and again. If there was an alternative I would use it.

I have used Skype for a long time. It worked fine before the UI was updated, and I did not enjoy having to relearn where almost every single UI element was located. But I would not have had a reason to stop using it until the ability to store a telephone number for a Contact was removed. Literally half the point of Skype is that it bridges the online world and the telephone world. I used it in a foreign country to call an 800 number for my travel agent when I needed help. 800 numbers don't work in foreign countries - THAT WAS USEFUL and it saved my bacon. But now I can't add new phone numbers to contacts, and I am looking for a Skype replacement. You want to know why people are leaving? Well, I imagine I'm not alone. :-)

Short answer - yes! I'm always disappointed when a blog I want to following doesn't provide an RSS feed. Thunderbird lets me very conveniently get email and RSS all in one place.

If anyone made a program to disable this, you'd probably make some money. I don't want to try remotely editing the Registry on my mother's computer :-)