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LogMeIn to Mac users: No Hamachi² for you!

by Steven Sande Sep 11th 2009 at 7:00AM

I'm not a fan of setting up Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). In fact, I've had so many issues with VPNs in the past that I now subcontract that work to a fellow geek who seems to have a knack for understanding the various settings. That's why I have been following Hamachi with great interest for the past several years.

Hamachi is described in the Wikipedia as "a zero-configuration virtual private network (VPN) shareware application capable of establishing direct links between computers that are behind NAT firewalls without requiring reconfiguration (in most cases); in other words, it establishes a connection over the Internet that very closely emulates the connection that would exist if the computers were connected over a local area network."

LogMeIn, a commercial firm that produces both free and subscription services for controlling other machines, sent out an email to customers on Thursday touting Hamachi², their implementation of Hamachi. LogMeIn has been deeply involved in Hamachi development, so the announcement was expected. What I didn't expect to see was that they've left both Mac and Linux users out in the cold.

I quickly jotted off an email to LogMeIn and received this response: "Mac is not currently supported, we do plan on adding support for other platforms but do not have an ETA at this time." For quite a while, there was an open source project called "Hamachi X," but it's no longer supported. Another developer took on the task of creating a Mac OS X and Linux Hamachi client called Hamachi Sidekick, which is a GUI to a command-line Hamachi tool. Unfortunately, LogMeIn also pulled the Mac OS X command-line interface (CLI) version of Hamachi, so there's no way to even try the CLI tool or Hamachi Sidekick now.

LogMeIn may tout Hamachi² as "a VPN that just works," but for Mac users, it just doesn't work.

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I'm not a fan of setting up Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). In fact, I've had so many issues with VPNs in the past that I now subcontract...
 

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jm

Agree with you Steven. So I turned to NeoRouter now. The big reason is the Hamachi Linux version is not compatible with the hamachi2 Windows and I have to use the Mac as well. Luckily, I found the NeoRouter on the hamachi forum and give it a try. It works pretty well on my Leopard and I feel it's much better than H. I hope Logmein should not do the stupid, though linux and mac users are so small in their paid user base. They'd better release the linux and mac soon. Anyway, if someone have the same issue as me, try the alternative solution: www.neorouter.com

September 24 2009 at 3:39 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to jm's comment
picktechlimited

good, i am seeing...
just can say good bye hamachi...
hence i am for main my linux so use hamachi..
no linux support is meant this is no value for me.

November 08 2009 at 7:33 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
stewarttaylor

The way I look at it, most remote access tools lack MAC support, but the ones that offer it are just waay too pricey. I've been a long-time user of Techinline (http://www.techinline.com) which is a relatively unknown solution, but is probably the easiest to use and also 100% customizable. It doesn't have as many features as LMI Rescue (which I used in the past) but is more than enough functionality-wise to get by.

September 22 2009 at 11:56 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
SteveMinne

I'm a 21 year Mac IT support pro. After attempting to make a living with 2-3 other products, I subscribed to NTR 2.5 years ago.

NTR Global develops a professional grade cross platform remote support product. It's reliable and the support second to none. Pricing before 2009 was around $150 per month. Now it's about 1/3 of that.

That might sound high to the casual user. But if you need a solid product with a solid support team behind it, it makes many other remote support products seem like a joke. My encounters with MacHelpMate and WebEx were torture compared to NTR's reliability and tech support. No exaggeration.

http://www.ntrglobal.com/en-US/home.asp

September 15 2009 at 5:44 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
SteveMinne

I've encountered LogMeIn twice while doing work on Macs formerly supported by other Mac consultants. BOTH TIMES they had LogMeIn installed and OS X was munged. Both encounters were in 2007. That was all I needed to see and have since avoided it like the plague.
If you are a self-respecting support pro then you'll pay for a professional remote support tool.
I'm in year three with NTR. Very good product, excellent support, and as of 2009, even good pricing.

September 15 2009 at 4:53 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to SteveMinne's comment
Steven Sande

Steve - what's NTR?

TUAWSteve

September 15 2009 at 5:32 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Christopher Gillespie

I'm a new fan of ShareTool. Great product for WAN Bonjour. I run it through the iVPN front-end on my home machine. iVPN lets you enable and configure Mac OSX's internal L2TP and PPTP server. The combo is impeccable.

http://www.macserve.org.uk/projects/ivpn/

Sorry, no trial. I can endorse it works under 10.6.

September 12 2009 at 8:00 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
rdsh

I voted with my feet. I used to be a paying subscriber to LogMeIn, but have not renewed owing to their attitude to Mac support.

September 12 2009 at 2:17 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Bensawsome

I have been using HamachiX on my Uni-body MBP while it had Leopard for a little while and on an old Powerbook G4 I had from work for about a year. (with Leopard also). It worked great... Then I tried HamachiX on Snow Leopard. It didn't wanna open since I didn't have Rosetta installed... And I really would prefer to keep it off for disk space as HamachiX apparently was the only PPC program on my mac. So then I tried Hamachi Sidekick… It COMPLETELY freaked out. I know I don't have Rosetta installed but still.
Ok first, the computer completely froze for about a minute.
Second, the graphics just FREAKED OUT!
Third, a ton of software update notifications popped up and I was finally able to get a screen shot after closing about 40 of them. Here is a screen shot of that: https://dl.getdropbox.com/u/88521/hamchisidekickfreakout.jpg
I don't know what will happen if I install Rosetta us installed but I’m not gonna try :/
Anyways that is what happened with me. Any other comments/happenings similar to this?

September 11 2009 at 10:33 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Allyson Pelletier

Thanks everyone for your interest in and comments about LogMeIn Hamachi2. I wanted to clarify a few things relating to Mac and Linux support.

Users who are running the previous version of Hamachi on Mac/Linux can continue to participate in existing networks, and even participate in new networks created with Hamachi2.

While we cannot commit to specific timeframes to new features or products, we are committed to supporting additional platforms with LogMeIn Hamachi2 services. When we have more information, we’ll communicate it as soon as possible.

Best regards,
Allyson Pelletier
Director, Consumer & SMB products
LogMeIn, Inc.

September 11 2009 at 4:22 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
3 replies to Allyson Pelletier's comment
R2B2

I'm a big fan of ShareTool myself…

http://yazsoft.com/products/sharetool/information/

September 11 2009 at 3:01 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
subspacednb

Better grab it while you still can:

http://files.hamachi.cc/osx/

http://files.hamachi.cc/linux/

September 11 2009 at 12:57 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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