Teamviewer

Author
Discussion

bitchstewie

Original Poster:

50,767 posts

209 months

Monday 25th July 2016
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I know we have a few in the MSP/enterprise side of things, any of you use Teamviewer (commercial so paid for) and if so how do you find it?

anonymous-user

53 months

Monday 25th July 2016
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I am not in enterprise or anything nor commercial use but I used it personally for a while until recently, they suffered a breach about a month ago and anyone with an account had their passwords stolen, some reporting money drained from paypal.
Reddit thread here with alternatives - https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/4m7ay...

Personally now I just use remote desktop connection, I've found it is a lot better than teamviewer for my uses.

LordGrover

33,531 posts

211 months

Monday 25th July 2016
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My main gripe is they keep 'improving' it. First bought licenses rather than use free version about version 6.
Only issue is, most tv host clients accept the free upgrade which doesn't work with previous licensed version. Either forced to upgrade or remove and reinstall tv back to previous version - which you can't do remotely for obvious reasons. irked
Otherwise, it's ace! I'd really struggle to support as many users as I do without it, though I've not tried any alternative for many years.

Magic919

14,126 posts

200 months

Monday 25th July 2016
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They banned it some time ago where I work as a security risk.

GrumpyTwig

3,354 posts

156 months

Monday 25th July 2016
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Magic919 said:
They banned it some time ago where I work as a security risk.
I think they had some kind of accounts breach not so long ago iirc, also they were a bit stty about it too and denied it for a while then gave in. Not something I'd use in a corporate environment tbh but for personal use (still use it to help out a disabled friend remotely) it's fine imo

Edited by GrumpyTwig on Monday 25th July 22:13

poing

8,743 posts

199 months

Monday 25th July 2016
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Prefer Citrix GoToAssist, been using for years and it's never been anything but 100% reliable. I much prefer the way it works from other devices too, especially mobile devices and my Mac at home.

I found Teamviewer difficult to use from a tablet remotely when I tested it, I test every year when contract time is up but stick to old faithful Citrix. Not the cheapest mind but worth every penny to me.

bitchstewie

Original Poster:

50,767 posts

209 months

Tuesday 26th July 2016
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The "breach" is an interesting one as nobody seems to have claimed credit and nobody is aware of anyone having offered any of the credentials for sale, but lots of people impacted do seem to have been guilty of password reuse etc.

It's an interesting one as I've not seen one shred of "proof" just lots of throw enough mud and some might stick.

LordGrover

33,531 posts

211 months

Tuesday 26th July 2016
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poing said:
Prefer Citrix GoToAssist, been using for years and it's never been anything but 100% reliable. I much prefer the way it works from other devices too, especially mobile devices and my Mac at home.

I found Teamviewer difficult to use from a tablet remotely when I tested it, I test every year when contract time is up but stick to old faithful Citrix. Not the cheapest mind but worth every penny to me.
Being a long-term user of TeamViewer and ignorant of alternatives I'm trialling this now.
Seems quite 'smooth' but a bit laggy compared to TV. Lots of waiting for unattended access too which is tiresome.
Will work with it for a few days on a dozen or so PCs and see how it goes.

Seems very cheap, unless I'm misunderstanding the pricing. Will speak to their customer services to confirm.

Berz

406 posts

191 months

Tuesday 26th July 2016
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LordGrover said:
My main gripe is they keep 'improving' it. First bought licenses rather than use free version about version 6.
Only issue is, most tv host clients accept the free upgrade which doesn't work with previous licensed version. Either forced to upgrade or remove and reinstall tv back to previous version - which you can't do remotely for obvious reasons. irked
Otherwise, it's ace! I'd really struggle to support as many users as I do without it, though I've not tried any alternative for many years.
We have the same problem with people the license mismatches, it's very frustrating. There are ways round it with customised hosts but it would be great to not need to do that. Nowadays we don't install it at all as we don't need the unattended access; we just talk them through downloading the correct previous version or send a link to the customised quick support one.

poing

8,743 posts

199 months

Tuesday 26th July 2016
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LordGrover said:
Being a long-term user of TeamViewer and ignorant of alternatives I'm trialling this now.
Seems quite 'smooth' but a bit laggy compared to TV. Lots of waiting for unattended access too which is tiresome.
Will work with it for a few days on a dozen or so PCs and see how it goes.

Seems very cheap, unless I'm misunderstanding the pricing. Will speak to their customer services to confirm.
I'm sure TV offered me a better deal this year, will have to investigate now! Can't remember the TV pricing model but think it was the same where you just pay for admins.
Unattended isn't the easiest to setup but it's really good once you do, even saves the Windows login which can be handy. Updates by itself with no input, I've never had to do anything on laptops that are even 5 years old, still works the same as the day it was installed.
Can be a bit laggy on poor connections but you can turn down the performance to compensate, not greatly though I have to say.

Sheets Tabuer

18,895 posts

214 months

Tuesday 26th July 2016
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Use it in the enterprise, it's rock solid and we've never had issues with it.

Brother D

3,698 posts

175 months

Tuesday 26th July 2016
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bhstewie said:
The "breach" is an interesting one as nobody seems to have claimed credit and nobody is aware of anyone having offered any of the credentials for sale, but lots of people impacted do seem to have been guilty of password reuse etc.

It's an interesting one as I've not seen one shred of "proof" just lots of throw enough mud and some might stick.
Yes that all went surprisingly quiet - even the guy on Reddit who said their two-factor-auth TV account was hacked never responded to any other questions on the topic. Like quite a few other applications, by default it's rather open (although latest versions of TV have tightened down). If you follow the security hardening guides, the risks of the TV account being compromised are massively reduced.
I think in the end although the furore died down it was generally accepted that a lot (if not all) of the people hacked had been using the same password everywhere across their accounts.

firemunki

361 posts

130 months

Tuesday 26th July 2016
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LordGrover said:
My main gripe is they keep 'improving' it. First bought licenses rather than use free version about version 6.
Only issue is, most tv host clients accept the free upgrade which doesn't work with previous licensed version. Either forced to upgrade or remove and reinstall tv back to previous version - which you can't do remotely for obvious reasons. irked
Otherwise, it's ace! I'd really struggle to support as many users as I do without it, though I've not tried any alternative for many years.
Similar for us, have to remember to say click on run only for the person I'm supporting, second role I've used it and I like it. Much better than logmein I feel as it worked outside of the browser.

Funk

26,254 posts

208 months

Tuesday 26th July 2016
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Worth turning on 2FA with TV as well. Any malicious login will be thwarted instantly.

bitchstewie

Original Poster:

50,767 posts

209 months

Wednesday 27th July 2016
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OK so 2FA for access seems a must. Then with the client you seem able to specify a connection whitelist so only accounts on the whitelist can connect which is what I guess would be the safety net if we wanted to use it on servers in remote offices for unattended access?

Funk

26,254 posts

208 months

Wednesday 27th July 2016
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If it's for an enterprise environment you might want to take a look at Pulseway: https://www.pulseway.com/features

I use it to monitor personal machines on a free account but it seems to offer a very comprehensive suite for the full commercial version. The app is superb and includes full hw monitoring and ability to do things like powershell commands etc. It will alert you if any machine goes offline or powers down. I've got it configured so I can cold boot my PC over WAN if I need to.

The free version I have doesn't include RD so I still use TV for that with Chrome Remote as a backup in case TV spits its dummy (which it has a couple of times - I've been able to get in using CR and restart TV).

Edited by Funk on Wednesday 27th July 02:04