Skype Helper Tool pop-ups annoying - solution

I have used Skype on my Mac for years. However when I turned my machine off and on last week a new version of Skype was automatically installed / updated on my Mac. It had a complete different interface that does not show my favourites and appears to have a different interface that completely changed the way I use Skype. To be truthful I hate it.

Not only that, every few minutes I have a pop-up appears asking me to install a helper tool. I enter my password to install the helper tool... and guess what - a few minutes later the pop-up appears again. I enter my password again wondering if "I" made a mistake to find only minutes later the pop-up appears again.

This got me suspicious wondering if I had malware on my computer. So I use ESET to do a malware search and clean on my Mac but it finds nothing. I do a Google search for the Helper Tool message that comes up on my Mac and find a few threads saying this problem has occurred connected to a Microsoft update that (according to several people) Microsoft will not acknowledge as an error in the new update. I can't validate this as being true - as I personally have not been in touch with MS.

But this annoying helper pop-up is getting so bad I want to remove Skype altogether. (Note my Mac's are using High Sierra 10.13.5)

So this morning - thinking logically (instead of emotionally) - I thought - "if many people are reporting this as an error from the new MS update - then what would happen if I installed the older version of Skype?"

SO I did a search for "old skype versions mac" - and found: ********

I downloaded version 7.58.501 - installed it... and "voila" I have the skype interface I am used to and prefer and the 'helper pop-ups' have stopped altogether.

I am no expert but it does appear that the helper pop-ups are 100% related to the new update 8.21.0.7 which is 90mb as a download compared to the previous traditional skype version that has always been between 42mb to 45mb as a download. I am guessing MS has included another 45mb of coding in the new version (doubling it's size) and must have a lot of extra less that useful stuff bundled in the background that is sadly creating problems.

If you are suffering from the endless 'helper pop-ups' - until MS sort the problems out - I'd suggest re-installing the previous version 7.58.501

I am now back to my happy days in using Skype.

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