Disruptive Innovations’ Daniel Glazman recently announced the availability of WengoPhone for Firefox beta version. WengoPhone is an open source application for text, voice and video conferencing developed by OpenWengo, an open source project supported by French telecom Wengo (a neuf cegetel company). OpenWengo enables voice over IP (VoIP) based on the SIP standard which ensures compatibility with other providers using the same protocol.

As usual with VoIP technology, Wengo users can talk for free over the Internet and also can call regular phones (landlines or cell phones) at highly competitive rates by buying Wengo Call-out credits. A review of the offered rates place Wengo at a competitive position compared with Skype the current leader in VoIP applications (also called soft phones). Convenience of one or another will depend on the user’s preferred calling destination.

The Firefox extension (version 0.68) is a 1.5 MB download available for Windows and MacOS X and does not require any other component. It will add a button to the toolbar. Pressing the button will open the WengoPhone sidebar. Users can connect to Wengo or create a new account. It also features a contact list which unfortunately does not reside on Wengo servers but in the Firefox user profile. So it may be a good idea to backup your profile folder (particularly the Wengo folder).

WengoPhone includes € 0.20 so you can try the quality to your favorite destination. To place a call to a regular phone remember to enter the number: 00[country code][city code][phone number].