This library is made to reduce Skype CPU consumption by increasing poll (on Linux) or kevent (on Mac OS) call timeouts. It lowers Skype idle CPU load from 4.4% down to 0.9% and improves battery life on my laptop, while making Skype only a bit slower.

• Compile the source code with make .
• Run Skype with LD_PRELOAD=/path/to/skype-poll-fix.so skype on Linux or with DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES=/path/to/skype-poll-fix.dylib skype on Mac OS.
• On Linux you can edit /usr/share/applications/skype.desktop file to run Skype with skype-poll-fix.so automatically (example for Debian Jessie):
  • Change Exec= string to Exec=env LD_PRELOAD=/path/to/skype-poll-fix.so skype %U .

You can configure SET_POLL and MIN_POLL environmental variables. SET_POLL is a poll() or kevent() timeout value which would be set if Skype tries to poll with timeout less than MIN_POLL. Both variables are default to 300 ms.

#####Example LD_PRELOAD=/path/to/skype-poll-fix.so MIN_POLL=100 SET_POLL=250 skype

All poll() timeouts less than 100 ms would be set to 250 ms.

Based on Valery Yundin idea.