LogMeIn to discontinue free remote access product | Hacker News Reader

LogMeIn to discontinue free remote access product

blog.logmein.com

53 pointsheywire69 comments

Whilst I completely respect their decision to withdraw the LogMeIn Free product offering I found the notification period way too short and badly communicated. I received an email this morning saying there would no longer be a LogMeIn Free offering from today and a subscription would be required to continue using the service. Digging further it appears there's a 7 day grace period for existing users - although there's no mention of that in the email. It's a stellar product for sure so I now find myself asking if I want to do business with a company that communicates this badly with it's users.

TL:DR: LogMeIn decided to screw up the customers who once paid $99 to get their premium Ignition iOS app and wants them to pay monthly/yearly.

I think Ignition was always $29.99 or less. I don't remember seeing $99 any time. Is that what you payed?

The app has been as high as $149 on the AppStore.

http://appshopper.com/productivity/logmein-ignition

I paid $30AUD I believe... the announcement said this in the email:

"While your existing Ignition app will continue to work as it always has, it will no longer receive updates and bug fixes. However, you may switch to the new LogMeIn for iOS/Android app at any time. It's free to download and will work with a Pro account."

Anyone have suggestions for an alternative? I haven't ever found a product that works as consistently and seamlessly (without having to fight firewall issues).

Edit: I should add that I'm willing to pay for a service, but most of the options I've seen are for enterprise customers, not individuals with a few clients.

Teamviewer's been great for mac & windows for me for a long time.

I've used Teamviewer a few times, but I found it cumbersome compared to LogMeIn. I'll have to check it out further.

I'm also looking for something that can be used commercially, that doesn't cost a ton. I've looked at both Teamviewer's and LogMeIn's licenses in the past and found them unmanageable for some of my situations.

We use Bomgar at work. We have their physical appliance, but I believe it can be virtualized now. It's been pretty rock solid for what we need it for.

http://www.bomgar.com/

Seconding Teamviewer.

Buying the product.

Unfortunately the pricing plans for LogMeIn and TeamViewer are setup for enterprise customers. I understand it might not be worthwhile for them to deal with smaller customers, but I'd love to find a product for less than $50 per month (preferably $5-25 a month). But I am not an expert on the costs of running the services that LogMeIn or TeamViewer offer, so maybe that's not possible.

NoMachine[1] works well for me. Although it won't help with firewall issues. I'm lucky enough that the desktop machine in my office has a public IP. x11vnc[2] is a nice lightweight alternative that basically allows you to use any standard VNC client to connect to an existing X session.

[1] https://www.nomachine.com/ [2] http://www.karlrunge.com/x11vnc/

This looks interesting. They make all of their money on enterprise licenses and give out their software for free to end users.

Also, they're about to fix their firewall limitation:

"NoMachine Anywhere is the next piece of the puzzle. NoMachine Anywhere is a free service, which will be available to everyone, enabling people to connect to each other's computer behind routers and firewalls, without the need for knowing their IP address. Initially slated for end 2013, it has been moved to first quarter 2014." -from their website

Chrome Remote Desktop, if you use chrome.

Copilot.com - It's free on the weekends!

source: I am a founder of Fog Creek Software, makers of Copilot.com

I currently use LogMeIn to help my grandma with her computer woes. I only log in remotely about once per month, and only for a few minutes - so a pay as you go option would be perfect for me.

I tried copilot - but it failed utterly and miserably on two points:

  - DPI. My grandmother's computer has a high DPI setting, so she can read menus/buttons. When connecting from my local computer, copilot just couldn't handle the DPI difference (appearently).

  - Windows 8/Metro. When my grandma was stuck in metro, I couldn't connect remotely. Which sort of defeated the purpose of the tool.

Joel Spolsky . . . Do nerd celebs really just wander around HN?

Michael Pryor I think, actually.

I'm not Joel Spolsky, but yes, nerd celebs do wander around HN.

Joel is on here. Still pops up, occasionally (that I've noticed).

Many presences have seemingly declined, in the last few years. Interests and competing demands change for everyone; there's also some ongoing speculation that as HN has grown and, for lack of a better term, the signal/noise ratio has declined, those more interested in a focused and concentrated "signal" have lost interest, or patience with the noise.

Also, any individual's participation, even if held at a steady level, is likely to decline in prominence at least somewhat amidst the vastly increased HN traffic.

I can't speak for Joel on this (I don't know him, even remotely). But since the grandparent was speaking about presences more generally.

Just checked it out. Looks interesting. The pricing structure is still not quite the perfect fit for me, so let me explain.

I've got around 20 clients I have to meet with in person every 6-12 weeks. I'd like to have a client app I can install on each of their computers (PC and Mac) so at any time I can jump on and help them without any prompt (other than possibly a "allow David access, yes or no" option.

It is likely that the real problem is that I'm just not charging enough. With what I current charge my clients, I can't justify $5 / month for a client who generates on average $15-30 in revenue each month (that's average, because I don't meet with them every month).

I like the Copilot Classic pay by the minute pricing, and if my users were more tech savy, that could work well. But they aren't and by the time I get them to connect to a website and get the screenshare running, they'd rather I just setup an appointment to meet with them in person. The Copilot Classic pricing structure though could work well for allowing me to answer any questions that take less than 15-20 minutes remotely and reserve onsite appointments for the bigger issues.

I'll still have to give it a try with a few of my more tech savy clients and see if we can't make it work. Thanks for the suggestion.

Try "Windows Remote Assistance" it's super easy, as long as they are on Windows 7 or Vista.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/get-help-windows-...

Teamviewer, RealVNC, RDP (Windows)

Been using LogMeIn's products since RemotelyAnywhere, which was cut up into many smaller products. Their software has generally been the most updated and worked. The few times a month I have to remote login it was worth the free, in exchange I put more active clients onto their own Pro plan.

The LogMeIn product I happily pay for is join.me, it's head and shoulders above anything out there. Having to pay for two that I use once in a while isn't too appetizing.

It would have been nice to decide within 30 days but I suspect LogMeIn has calculated how long it took customers to switch when they limited the plans down to 10 free computers and that 7 days is enough of a squeeze to get the payers paying.

I had been reviewing TeamViewer and a few others, this will likely hasten my review of paid offerings. LogMeIn's pricing seems more reasonable than GoToMyPC which is $10/machine/month. If there's any other options worth exploring please share :)

NoMachine.com is worth checking out. The client is kinda heavy, and uses a fair chunk of ram, but it's free and workable.

Great, I'll check it out, thanks!

I've been using logmein for over 5 years and although at times I was tempted to go Pro, I stayed with Free simply because there was no need for it. The free did wonderful job. I was able to login to my computers from iPhone, Mac or PC without firewall or dynamic IP problems (stuff that use to matter back then). I always wondered why they did not charge this awesome product. I do not mind paying for the service now but I wonder how will this impact less frequent users who wants to fix their mom's computer once a year or so? They say join.me remains free but is it as good as logmein Free? I had mixed results with it. Disclaimer: I own logmein stocks.

Why would I believe that any of LogMein's other services like join.me or Cubby will remain free. Join.me is no problem because there is no switching cost. However I would never entrust my files to Cubby because of the risk they pull a fast one like they are doing with LogMein remote access.

They really should have thought this through and figured a way to allow low intensity users (I use it maybe once a quarter) to continue for free.

If you do want to depend on free services be ready to switch easily, or check to make sure that the vendor offers free-for-life.

join.me works great if you have someone at the machine and they can start the session. But LogMeIn was something you could leave running on a machine and come back and access it later. You could have your whole family in there on your account and remote into any of them with one click when you get a tech support call from grandma.

While I am really frustrated with this 7 day notice, I do feel the need to plug the Cubby paid service. I keep 0 bits in the cloud, but the accompanying Direct Sync service that comes with Pro is very useful...in fact, anyone know of any other direct sync services, sans cloud storage, that work well?

BittorentSync is very handy. http://www.bittorrent.com/sync

Even better. Thanks for the tip.

Any offering from any company can easily disappear without notice (except for contracts but even then bankruptcy, hacking events, natural disasters, etc). An offering disappearing without warning is much more likely in case of a free product. Any vendor's 'free for life' offering is likely just marketing material and won't be free for life (change of contract, company merger/buyout, bankruptcy, etc).

Whats a good pay alternative that isn't LogMeIn? I find this 7 day notice disgusting and simply a tactic to make the existing user pay without giving them much time to find an alternative.

This is the best news I have heard all day. I HATE LOGMEIN, though one of my clients uses this in preference to a VPN into their network. I don't know if this is a free client limitation, but the remote window is stuck to the resolution that the pc is set to. They built a bargain basement PC and stuck a 1024X768 monitor on it. It ends up looking horrible on my 1440x900 display and is barely usable. Im hoping this spurs the client into providing a reasonable way to access their SQL server...

I once wrote a pretty cool batch script that would use a minimal vmc executable which then tunneled a reverse vnc session using putty's plink . I used to package it and sent it to people that needed tech support, they would click on the icon and it would then route their session over ssh to my computer at the office. Then we moved to free logmein but i guess now i have to search for that script again.

Sounds like something worth sharing ... ?

Definitely sounds interesting!

Here's a PDF spec that we wrote for copilot.com back in 2005, which basically did exactly what you are saying (except in a cleaned up, hands free way): http://www.joelonsoftware.com/RandomStuff/copilot_spec.pdf

I am the guy on this thread on the Old Joel on Software on this threat trying to sell my remote support script :)

this was on 2005 too

I do something similar with a reverse ssh tunnel to my home router so that I can rdp into my work computer. I find rdp to be the superior remote solution on Windows, especially when dealing with multiple monitors.

I just installed Teamviewer. It is free for personal use. The installation procedure is a wiz. Looking forward to a great remote access experience.

And now I stop using your product. I already paid - I won't be paying again.

Damn, I used this a ton back in the day, and still use it occasionally now.

Wanted to say the same thing. Except that I totally don't use it anymore. Wanted to try it again last month but couldn't find the free remote controlling anywhere. Figured they stopped offering it.

Is there a FOSS alternative that I'm missing? I've just been doing RDP/NX/VNC with NAT (aka port forwarding).

I mostly use sshuttle for this sort of thing now. It works well and is fairly customizable but you're out of luck if you are on an OS that doesn't use iptables.

You mean nftables, right ;)

There is curiously no way to delete your account (at least that I can find). Some Google searching led to a forum post where they said you can contact support, but as a free user I don't even see a link to support.

http://www.accountkiller.com/en/delete-logmein-account

Looks like you're right. In my opinion this is one of the worst things that a website can do.

Shit. I use it often to fix my Mom's computer. Gonna have to find a decent alternative.

TeamViewer is great for support like that. It's pretty easy to get even non-technical people to start it up and then they just read you a simple code and you can connect.

Windows Vista, 7 and 8 come with "Remote assistance" which I find to be quite useful, get your mum to run it and (the gods willing) you will be able to access her desktop via it, without the need for extra software. I use it to fix my dads computer often.

This won't work for me - my parents login as restricted user, and LogMeIn allows me to switch users when I need to.

I guess that £29/year is a small price to pay for that kind of feature.

You could try an old trick that I used during my tech support days.

You can kill Windows explorer with task manager and then use the File/New Task option to restart explorer with a higher level user. You can then do whatever you need to as that user (e.g. control panel, delete files, add hardware, etc). When you're done, you can just repeat the process and start explorer again as the original users.

I haven't tested 100% in Windows 8 (killing and starting explorer as another user does work), but it should work in Windows 7 and below.

I used this any time right clicking an exe and selecting "run as" wasn't enough

What about Chrome Remote Desktop?

This is exactly why we created Copilot.com almost a decade ago. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/AardvarkSpec.html It's still available and is free on the weekends.

I have been using TeamViewer for this for some years. It works quite well, is localized so less computer literate parents outside US/UK have a chance of running it, and is free for personal use (even on weekdays :-P).

Chrome Remote Desktop for family - gonna finish setting up VNC for the personal stuff (already have it running locally on my Win box, just didn't finish the setup and boot LogMeIn cause it was so easy).

Aeroadmin is free. Check it out. Looks quite simple and pretty fast. http://www.aeroadmin.com

Doesnt Skype have screen sharing these days? most moms are sure to have skype too.

It does. But screen sharing and remote access aren't the same thing.

Sooo.. how much will it cost, and why is the price so difficult to find?

Looks like $50/year for existing free users. No idea what it will raise to after the first year.

I talked them down to fourty, but had to turn them down because it only allows access to two computers. I've had free access to ten computers for years, now they want 130 bucks to keep that same level of service? Screw that!

What about join.me?

It only solves part of the experience, when someone is on both sides of the remote session. Quite often folks want to remote access another computer when no one is there.

Meh. On to Teamviewer.

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