Freestyler CMS, browser add-ons and Skype

Skype  is a great mostly free Internet telephone service and personally I use it from time to time but one thing I've noticed recently is that browser plug-ins like Skypes and Freestyler CMS don't always get along.

Like many of our customers I also use Freestyler and I know of a few of our customers who also use this combination of programs.  For the most part they work well side-by-side.

The problem is not Skype, but the plug-in which Skype adds to Internet Explorer and Firefox by default.  The feature highlights phone numbers so that you can click on them to launch Skype.  While this is convenient, it is not always practical and in my honest opinion, the feature should be optional.

So if you've seen something that looks like this:  on web pages you visit and you also use Freestyler, then there might be a potential problem.

And as I've found, it can have unpredictable effects on Freestyler's Rich Text Editor, particularly in Internet Explorer.  One effect can be after saving, all of the content after the first Skype number does not get saved.  The problem is that the add-on inserts a whole lot of HTML code that Freestyler doesn't yet recognise how to strip out.  This can give the impression of losing content.

With a growing number of Skype users, you can be sure we'll be working on a solution, but in the meantime it is probably safer to disable these add-ons when using Freestyler. 

I found this webpage with specific instructions on how to do just this.  The good news is that once you apply the change, Skype remembers it so that even if you upgrade the problem won't return.