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Skype and the global warming

Skype is constantly eating 10 to 15% of the CPU on my MacBook, and makes it hot even when I'm doing nothing. Is it because I have close to 200 contacts and usually more than 15 open chats?

I have about the same number of contacts on Adium, and it usually stays in the 0.5 to 1.0% CPU range.

There should be an environmental ranking for software, according to the amount of CPU they use while just waiting...

Comments

Skype uses a peer to peer model, so it's burning that CPU forwarding other people's conversations.

I've noticed something interesting on my Skype: it uses more CPU when one or more active chat have a lot of unread messages -- don't you have a "Watecooler" useless chat with a ton of messages waiting for you? Just clicking on it and having the unread messages lower from 900 to 0 seems to reduce the CPU usage (from 20% to 10%)...

Hmm, sounds like a great way for me to stay warm here in Hong Kong this winter.

I like that! Environmental rankings for software. Wonder what Seti@home will get..

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