1. Home
  2. Categories
  3. Side Bar WTF
  4. COMMERCIAL USE DETECTED

COMMERCIAL USE DETECTED

  • _

    TeamViewer has always been a massive piece of obnoxious, draconian dick when it comes to its "commercial use detection". These are the things that happen within this pinnacle of anti-user product:

    • make the entire blocking process automatic and never give you any reasons
    • use very stupid algorithms (that probably doesn't even contain AI) for the process that causes lots of false positives: if you use teamviewer off mobile network (because hotspot sharing), you're most definitely commercial use! Domain network? Might as well block you just in case! Used an account with commercial license on a PC, then switch to a free account? It's a good chance that you'll be blocked.
    • make it so that if you want to get unblocked, you need to file a form manually to apply for it
    • last time I checked the "commercial use detected" thread on teamviewer official forum, there are 67 pages and counting. Full of people who got "commercial use detected" blocked for unknown reasons. And support keeps saying "file the official form to get unblocked"
    • use one of the most annoying ways of doing this: if you're targeted by the algorithm, when you try to remote access somewhere else every time it'll say, IN BLOCK LETTERS, "COMMERCIAL USE DETECTED", before it kicks you out soon after. Then you're blocked from connection for 10-15 minutes.
    • constant nagging about "you need a license for commercial use" and "we shall kindly remind you that free version is for personal use only" every single connection (aka the "thank you for playing fair" message that pops up from both sides of the session every a the session is disconnected)
    • apparently, even upgrading the commercial version won't disable the nagging. At all. It just makes teamviewer kind enough to not eject your connection.

    Are there any good alternatives that aren't as stupid as teamviewer? Everyone around me uses teamviewer but my experience with it basically says that it's a time bomb that will betray you and blow up at your face any time when you're most dependent on it.

    10 Zecc Steve_The_Cynic 2 Replies
  • Tsaukpaetra
    Notification Spam Recipient

    If you don't really care about the console being visible in session (i.e. Someone at the computer can physically see the screen while you're on it) the built-in Remote Desktop functionality is pretty darn good. Would recommend either a VPN or setting up a gateway to sit between your PC and the Internet though.

    Otherwise there's always traditional VNC, though it can be slow as balls and has literally no whistles. Maybe a bell.

    3 _ 1 Reply
  • _

    @Tsaukpaetra said in COMMERCIAL USE DETECTED:

    If you don't really care about the console being visible in session (i.e. Someone at the computer can physically see the screen while you're on it) the built-in Remote Desktop functionality is pretty darn good. Would recommend either a VPN or setting up a gateway to sit between your PC and the Internet though.

    Otherwise there's always traditional VNC, though it can be slow as balls and has literally no whistles. Maybe a bell.

    I use remote desktop (for windows machines) or VNC (for linux machines) whenever I can; the only time teamviewer is used is when I cannot do remote desktop directly (usually because two sides cannot establish a direct connection).

    1 Tsaukpaetra 1 Reply
  • Tsaukpaetra
    Notification Spam Recipient

    @_P_ said in COMMERCIAL USE DETECTED:

    usually because two sides cannot establish a direct connection

    Ah, so you just need the gateway device then? It's only somewhat involved in setting one up, needs a VM with two NICs and Windows Server whatever-recent.

    1
  • Zecc
    🚽 Regular

    @_P_ said in COMMERCIAL USE DETECTED:

    apparently, even upgrading the commercial version won't disable the nagging.

    Not my experience at all. I'm not surprised if YMMV though.

    I have some limited experience with AnyDesk. I haven't ran it server-side, only as a client.
    It doesn't required installation, it's just an executable you run (according to Wikipedia this makes it a scammer's favorite). My experience with it has been positive so far.

    1 _ 1 Reply
  • pie_flavor
    Considered Harmful

    I just use Chrome Remote Desktop. Couldn't imagine using something as annoying as TeamViewer anywhere but commercial usage.

    4
  • _

    @Zecc said in COMMERCIAL USE DETECTED:

    @_P_ said in COMMERCIAL USE DETECTED:

    apparently, even upgrading the commercial version won't disable the nagging.

    Not my experience at all. I'm not surprised if YMMV though.

    I have some limited experience with AnyDesk. I haven't ran it server-side, only as a client.
    It doesn't required installation, it's just an executable you run (according to Wikipedia this makes it a scammer's favorite). My experience with it has been positive so far.

    AnyDesk doesn't require installation per se but unless you install it it has no access to UAC, which means you cannot perform anything that requires admin access (configuring services, task manager, run command as admin...). To gain as much privilege as teamviewer you still need to install it (from the GUI, or just anydesk.exe --install <location> --start-with-win in command line).

    3 Tsaukpaetra Ben_Warre 2 Replies
  • Tsaukpaetra
    Notification Spam Recipient

    @_P_ said in COMMERCIAL USE DETECTED:

    has no access to UAC,

    :wtf_owl: then they haven't programmed it right? Even batch scripts have the capability of requesting UAC, so I'm thinking it's something deeper than that.

    1 JBert Steve_The_Cynic 2 Replies
  • Parody

    FWIW, once upon a time I had VNC set up on all the machines on the home LAN. Combined with some SSH tunneling on the router computer I could connect to the important home machines from the outside world. I had a similar setup for source control.

    1
  • Ben_Warre

    @_P_ anydesk has a method to request elevation.

    I use (a commercial license) teamviewer but will fall back to anydesk if I get any issues

    1
  • JBert
    Fake News

    @Tsaukpaetra said in COMMERCIAL USE DETECTED:

    @_P_ said in COMMERCIAL USE DETECTED:

    has no access to UAC,

    :wtf_owl: then they haven't programmed it right? Even batch scripts have the capability of requesting UAC, so I'm thinking it's something deeper than that.

    It's not too unreasonable if they're aiming for users who might not have permission to elevate a process on the "screen sharing" computer.

    1
  • Steve_The_Cynic

    @_P_ said in COMMERCIAL USE DETECTED:

    Domain network? Might as well block you just in case!

    :wtf: That would break in my personal home network. It has more PCs than I really need, and Samba 4.6 runs on an RPi 3B+ (huge overkill, I know) as an Active Directory Domain Controller so that I don't have to worry about password synchronisation and permissions problems between the machines.

    And because I can, to be honest.

    But in any event, the bulk of what I do in this network is play games.

    EDIT: small note: for those rare moments when I want to do remote-access, I use normal RDP to Windows machines and VNC to touch the RPi. Not one of those moments involves reaching in to my network from the outside world.

    4
  • Steve_The_Cynic

    @Tsaukpaetra said in COMMERCIAL USE DETECTED:

    @_P_ said in COMMERCIAL USE DETECTED:

    has no access to UAC,

    :wtf_owl: then they haven't programmed it right? Even batch scripts have the capability of requesting UAC, so I'm thinking it's something deeper than that.

    'Sfunny, I read what @_P_ said as indicating that it can't show the UAC prompt to the remote person, which would, indeed, be a bit of an obstacle.

    3
Log in to reply