Here is a review of a Hearme.com alternative that was posted to the bgnrbnjo@onelist list by Joel West.

"It was suggested that we check out the firetalk program recently and we have done so. Julio and I checked it out and found it to be easy and fast to download, fairly user friendly, and pretty easy to find your contacts. When you compare it with the capabilities of the Hearme.com software, it falls a little short. Although regular verbal sound transmits pretty well, playing your banjo across the firetalk program results in a distorted mess. Also there is no way to hold the talk button down if you were to play your banjo. It does have a nice feature that allows you to render it "voice activated". In this mode, when it hears your voice, it automatically "holds" the talk button for you. Although this is a nice feature, it only allows one person to speak at the same time, drowning anything the other person is saying while you are speaking, out. The Hearme.com software allows many to talk at the same time, by buffering any data it recieves while you are talking, and transmitting it to you after you are finished speaking. Also, Hearme transmits the banjo sound pretty well too. Personally I think that due to the fact that the firetalk software has the voice activated feature, and transmits verbal sound so well, that it is a great replacement for Icq. It does virtually everything that icq does and more. Two thumbs up for using it to replace Icq, and two thumbs down for using it as a replacement for Hearme.com. Anyone interested in hooking up as a replacement for Icq let me know, and we can exchange firetalk numbers."

JAB