Gizmo – A free phone for your computer
Originally downloaded 12/8/05. Better than Skype? Only one way to find out, and Gizmo is definitely worth a try. The software is free, of course, but the service is another opportunity to enhance your phone bill. 
Update 10/24/06. OK, so in July 2006 I installed both Skype and Gizmo on my PowerMac and went about testing them out. I purchased time with both to allow phoning to land lines and cellphones and gave myself 3 months to decide on one of them. In the meantime, other VOIP clients popped up on my radar screen, but thus far I haven’t had time to study them in any depth.
Both Skype and Gizmo have a lot of great features, and since Gizmo is the underdog here I was secretly rooting for it to win me over. However, the simple fact is that after many hours of trying, and after opening and closing a ticket with Gizmo Project support, I have never been able to configure Gizmo so I can hear incoming calls. My outgoing calls appear to be going through, but I can never hear the replies. My phone will ring, but when I pick up, no one (apparently) is there. Gizmo Project support was unable to help, giving me a series of stock troubleshooting tips but not showing any real understanding or interest in my account. So, Gizmo is now going in the “Reject” software pile, and I’m continuing my service with Skype.
Here are the notes I kept on Gizmo during the project.
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There’s no great difference between Gizmo and Skype, and the Skype project is clearly much more active than Gizmo. In fact, there have been a dozen new builds of Skype for Mac OS X since July, but only 1 new version of Gizmo. All of this makes the choice pretty clear for me. For my notes on Skype, see the Skype mini-review.
Version as tested: 2.0. (v161)
