Time for a computer/software related post. haven’t done one of those in ages but, as the title says, I got feed up with TeamViewer thanks to their latest shenanigans so I’m writing a few words about it. I’m not even going to bother to link to their site, which I usually do when I write about something, since they are asshats that doesn’t deserve the clicks.
I have used TeamViewer for quite a lot of years now. Mostly for personal use but on and off for professional use as well. The latter especially when doing late evening/night interventions. It is so convenient not to have to drag myself to the office at awkward hours. Then we have the Covid panic of course but I’m mostly at the office during normal hours anyway.
Since my employer doesn’t like when we’re using free-for-personal-use software for work, and I do agree with that policy, I even bought a license for it. However, some time ago, they stopped charging my credit card for the annual fee without any explanation whatsoever. Okay, their problem really. I assumed they would catch up eventually.
So I was mighty surprised when suddenly a nasty letter arrived claiming that I had not paid my bills and that I should pay at once or else… Of course with it was a late payment fee. What the fuck? So I obviously contacted their support which, surprise, surprise, turned out to be absolutely useless.
They guy could not for his life understand that I actually asked them why they had stopped charging me and then sent a latter saying that I hadn’t paid some bill that I never received. Instead he kept harping about me sending a proof of payment. How the fuck do I send proof of payment for something I haven’t paid since you dumbasses stopped charging me and never told me anything about it?
So in the end I just paid the bill and the additional fee. My time is to valuable to waste on dumbasses.
Of course they still didn’t charge me my annual fee so a while ago my license was downgraded to a free one. I really couldn’t be bothered, it was their screw up after all, so I said I’ll just continue on the free version. The TeamViewer licenses are ridiculously expensive as well.
However, not long ago, these fuckers changed the terms for the free license and they didn’t even bother to inform their users about. Now the free license will disconnect you after less than a minute and you have to wait several minutes to reconnect. Seriously? That’s not a free license. It’s a useless license. You cannot even make a decent evaluation of the software in less than a minute.
That was pretty much the last straw. Fuck you TeamViewer!
So after a little research I went and tried out RemotePC. I have not used it for very long so I cannot comment about stability but it is very easy to install. It seems to have the options I would expect. Performance looks good but then I have a Gigabit connection both at home and at work. In general it seems to work well.
However, unlike TeamViewer, RemotePC has a reasonable pricing model for non-business customers. I pay just a little bit more for a years subscription of up to 10 sessions with RemotePC than what TeamViewer’s crap would cost me per month and for only a single session just to add insult to injury. I’m really annoyed with myself that I have been lazy and not kept track of the market. If I would have been more vigilant I would have switched a long time.
PG's Ramblings 