Commercial use - Connection time out
Comments
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I get it now folks. This hubris is caused by Self-serving Corporatism, as long as the cash keeps rolling in, they just don't care about the bottom few percent who happen to be the ones that helped get them started. They realized that they're big enough that they don't need good public relations any more.
I can see the Board Room discussion now. "OK, the free licences got us going and we're firmly established now but it's time to get rid of those pesky fools. Start denying access, give them a form to fill out and then NEVER ANSWER IT. HA, HA, HA, HA." Also, provide a forum where they can vent but don't read it except to censor any competitor references. And don't tell them that wiki has a Comparison of remote desktop software. That might start a trend that costs us millions.
Time for this Sisyphus to move on too but I will be telling my corporate contacts.
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Uggh, its doing it again on one PC at work but not the one I'm using now, same Win7 OS (not server) for personal use, oddly it kicked me out after I started to play a Youtube clip, I don't know if that was a fuke &/or why this might constitute commercial usage, this is really annoying though as its isolated to the PC I use most at work.
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Hi
I unsderstand that there is a form that I can complete that I am not using commercially. Where can I find that form?
Thanks,
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The form is here https://www.teamviewer.com/en/support/commercial-use-suspected/0
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@DaveYVR wrote:Hello,
I will be urging my clients and colleagues away from TeamViewer.
The reason is due to this recent message I received from TeamViewer installed on my personal computers:
"Sorry for the Interruption, your usage level has crossed the FREE user allowance. To continue using TeamViewer, you'll need to upgrade to a business solution"
I am sorry to have to go this direction, but I feel I have supported TeamViewer over the years as a good product. I have suggested it to my clients and friends. And I have used it as an employee in commercial settings with a valid commercial license, as well as my personal life.
I use Dropbox in a commercial setting, and feel it is worth what I pay for it on a monthly basis. I gladly pay the fee, since I am legitimately using it for commercial purposes. And their FREE limits were clearly stated at the beginning, and are not subject to being pulled if you reach the limit of space. So I can interact with family and friends on the same platform that I do business on.
Your practice of growing your business using Free licenses is a valid one. Not being upfront and transparent that there are time limits, as Dropbox is, and pulling ALL access if the limit is exceeded, is not. And when I started using TeamViewer more than 10 years ago, I am somewhat certain these restrictions were not part of your business plan. The onus to provide clear rules is on the contract writer, not the reader. This is what courts expect, and support, and should be at the back of anyones mind who writes agreements or contracts, whether on a web page Free license agreement or on paper. A contract is not law and can be invalidated in a court. You should be clear and upfront on your Free license as is expected by any reasonable court or person.
I am grateful for the free use. However, my issue comes with the time and effort I have spent learning your software, installing it to manage various personal computers and family member computers, and then having the rug pulled out from under me after all this time investment.
You have the majority of the market share at the moment. But if you keep pulling free licenses, those users are often employees of companies who use TeamViewer for commercial purposes, and there will inevitably be some blowback. In my case, I estimate that license to be over 10,000 seats for my employer (about half the employees), and countless more for our close colleagues and clients. This is in addition to lost sales from lack of future recommendations. I will recomend in the future that they look for alternatives to TeamViewer in good competitor products who would welcome larger clients. It would be resonable to understand that some of us do have direct lines to the IT managers and CTOs for larger regions such as Eastern North America and parts of South America, if not world wide.
In this day of social media, I am very surprised that your current tactics are those that were used in the past 2 decades, and have since rejected by most of the major tech companies who realised the effect of blowback on their shareholders.
I would be very open to you contacting me to discuss this if you feel my assessment is unfair.
Regards,
David
Thanks David,
You said it better and more elequotely than I can. They did this to me August 24, 2018 for the first time. I also will use other software. They did not provide any information as to what my free limits are or how they are determined. It appears to be corporate greed has manifested itself at top management of Team Viewer.
Sincerely,
Woody
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I installed TeamViewer on my Linux PC and my Windows 10 Laptop on which I run multiple VirtualBox VMs. TeamViewer seemed a great way to easily copy files between each VM on separate machines as well as access my desktop from my laptop when I am away from home.
But now they suspect me of commercial use and keep shutting me down even though I do not use TeamViewer software commercially at all. I have been submitting my log file to them using their recommended "Commercial Use Form" for about 6 weeks now and they do not reply and I still cannot access my own machines on my own private home network anymore.
Is there any value to software such as this? I have been using TeamViewer happily for over 5 years but their own dumb policies are breaking the deal for me.
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I too am not using TeamViewer commercially, just to remote my mum's computer when she has issues or to connect to my media centre box.
In any case, I work in desktop support for a large organisation and we're looking at replacing our Desktop Authority Expert Assist. I've been involved in shortlisting potential products and Team Viewer was one of them. I had had good results using the free version here at home so I though I would give it a listing on our shortlist. But because Team Viewer is evidently pushing out its free-tier users, I've struck it off this list. We have about at least 15000 desktops. Sorry Team Viewer, you won't be getting our organisation's business for the commercial license of Team Viewer. See ya.
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Gotta say thank you to TeamViewer for the terrible support and treatment of free users. Had you not turned into total dirt, I would continued my decade+ usage of your slow, outdated program.
**Third Party Product** is so much better in every way. Peace out trash!
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Thank you DemonI81!
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Yeah but 80 bucks a year minimum.
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I'm really sorry, but I'm ending the relationship with VM today. After more than 10 years really a sad event. **Third Party Product** works fine. Thank you for the hint here in the forum. Again: never see you again.
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How come nobody mentions **third party product**
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@MykeC wrote:I installed TeamViewer on my Linux PC and my Windows 10 Laptop on which I run multiple VirtualBox VMs. TeamViewer seemed a great way to easily copy files between each VM on separate machines as well as access my desktop from my laptop when I am away from home.
But now they suspect me of commercial use and keep shutting me down even though I do not use TeamViewer software commercially at all. I have been submitting my log file to them using their recommended "Commercial Use Form" for about 6 weeks now and they do not reply and I still cannot access my own machines on my own private home network anymore.
Is there any value to software such as this? I have been using TeamViewer happily for over 5 years but their own dumb policies are breaking the deal for me.
Even when they reply and grant free access, they do NOT disclose limits are imposed or what the limits are and how they are determined. See the email Team Viewer sent me on July 13, 2018 below:
Dear TeamViewer User,
Thank you for getting in touch with us. We are happy to inform you that your TeamViewer account has been reset to “free”. After reviewing your request, we decided that your use case can be qualified as “personal”.
Why was my access to TeamViewer limited?
You were asked to purchase a TeamViewer license because your usage pattern suggested that you were using TeamViewer in a commercial environment. To be able to keep a free version of TeamViewer, we must make sure that commercial users purchase a license. Unfortunately, it can happen that we detect commercial use where this is not the case.
We would like to address the most important issues of the TeamViewer community regarding commercial / personal use.
1. “Is TeamViewer cancelling the free usage of its software?”
No. TeamViewer is free for personal use, and we are committed to this remaining so. Personal use means that you are not using TeamViewer for purposes that are either directly or indirectly paid. Commercial use includes providing support to colleagues and clients, working remotely via TeamViewer, monitoring company hardware, etc. Read more about commercial use.
2. “I believe blocking personal users from using TeamViewer for free is unethical.”
We believe that providing and receiving help should not be a privilege for those who pay. Therefore we offer a free version of TeamViewer with many features. Implementing a mechanism to detect commercial use is part of our commitment to this idea. We do not target personal users but unfortunately, in some cases, personal users can be affected. We apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused and promise to continue to refine this mechanism.
3. “What is the motive behind blocking free users?”
We have taken this step because commercial users should not be able to use our free version. This way, we ensure our ability to offer a free version of TeamViewer with great features, performance, and possibilities.
We would like to thank our users who use TeamViewer as intended and help us to provide a free version for our personal users. Our vision is to empower people to help people, and we will always act accordingly.
Kind regards,
Your TeamViewer Team1 -
Having experienced repeated commercial use pop ups and link disconnects (even after the 4 week wait to get a response to my ticket assuring me that my account was reset to personal), I too checked out [Removed]. I have remoted into my home computer with TV and [Removed] at the same time, side by side. I actually like the way [Removed]handles multiple monitors better than TV. But I have noticed that every time I do this, the TV remote screen looks much better - sharper, much better contrast, and text is much easier to read. [Removed] works great but the remote screen image is consistently inferior. I don't see any settings to adjust image characteristics. So I still prefer TV but I can't trust it. I got a pop up and disconnect the same day I got an email response that my account was reset to personal. I was remoting in from work, which is probably what triggered the pop ups and disconnects, despite the fact that I made it clear that I often remote into personal computers from work, or a hotel, and was told in the email that this was OK and is still considered personal use.
So now I am running TV and [Removed] side by side. I prefer TV because the remote screen looks so much better, but I have [Removed] for when TV starts with the pop ups and disconnects. If [Removed]remote screen image looked as good as TV, I would just delete TV and move on. But it doesn't so I am running both and hoping TV will stop the pop ups and disconnects (like the email said).
Other basic solutions like [Removed] work but not so well when the remote machine has multiple monitors. My main remote computer has 6 displays connected. [Removed] handles this scenario best with a separate tab for each screen. TV has a pull down select which works well but is not as convenient as [Removed]. Chrome tries to show all 6 screens as 1 composite image. The result is text and icons that are too small to read. Just my observations. I want to stay with TV because of the superior remote image quality. But it doesn't matter if you can't connect. I sent in another ticket listing the TV IDs for every computer I access because I think the pop ups and disconnects are ID based, not account based. I am waiting on a resp to my 2nd ticket. In the mean time [Removed] is my backup.
[Post Edited Due to Community Guidelines]1 -
This is unbelievable. Teamviewer is trying to make me pay for personal use. I've been using the software for over 5 years now, for the exact same machine doing the exact same things but after the update it flagged me commerical use. I've submitted multiple tickets with no reply. I'm through with this software that tries to exploit their customers.
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I'm having the same issue. I cannot use it on my one pc anymore because its flagged it. It says it will disconnect me after 5 minutes but it kills any session after about 1 minute. Ive been ignored with tickets also.
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Identical issue here as well, joining thread for any updates.
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Happening to me to.
Anyone help?
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Good morning, I'm using TeamViewer for personal use (connect to home computer) but I skipped the license notice and cut my connection continuously. Is there any way to avoid this?
Thanks for the attention. Javi.
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I use team viewer to logon to my home computer where I work during the night and need that data sometimes at work as well.
How can team viewer say that that I have used team viewer commercially if I logon to one computer?
If I logon to 5 - XXXX computers, yes. Bu I do not do that.
If they had a singel user license where you have access to say 1 or 2 computers, then I would have had that long time ago. The pricing put it byond my reach.
Was a happy user.....
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me too!1
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Hello. I am having the same problem on my PC. Use as Personal but keep asking me to BUY LICENSE. Unistalled and removed PC from my Account and reintalled again but no go. Please help.
Thanks
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Me to just warned again after having it cleared, I have a raspberry Pi and A Laptop on my home network. Connected once a week for updates, its now classed as commercial useage. Note if you go through there license advisor, using just 1 user and selecting all other options to NO they want to change you 32Euros a month. Its clear where this bullying is heading.
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This is total bull **bleep**.
I understand WHY Teamviewer may have needed to do this, but it's turned into a PRIME example of someone having a good idea and then completely mucking it up in the execution! There is actually a very non-flattering term for people who do this....
The problem is the **bleep** algorithm is nailing people who are clearly (by ANY STANDARD) private users. But it's ONVIOUS that TeamViewer doesn't give a **bleep** about how many people they hurt/distrupt. So now it's a public relations matter which is going sideways. Do they really think that PRIVATE users would ever recommend TV to the companies they work for? Not any more they won't.
I mean, what is it that prevents people from seeing that their decisions/actions are just stupid? Well, no matter, happy to use different software to help friends and family - Teamviewer obviously wants us private users GONE. So be it.
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I was detected as "Commercial Use" and filled out the form and explained that I am using Teamviewer to support family members. Someone finally wrote back today and said "After reviewing your request, we decided that your use case can be qualified as “personal”.". However, when I tried to access my desktop upstairs, I am still getting a message that says I have been detected as "commercial use", which I am not. I tried to uninstall and reinstall but still no luck. If my access has been cleared and set as "personal" again, how do I get access back to mine and my parent's desktops? Please let me know. -Randy1
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I managed to submit a ticket 6 weeks ago and started to look around for an idea of how much longer it would take for them to reply to it. Having a quick read it appears that TV is no longer interested so I guess I need to find a replacement. I have never used it for commercial use and it is frustrating that they have a 'free' version that detects false positives so easily. Not a good reflection on the product and if they were smart they would dump the free version.
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This issue creaped up a week or so ago saying that it has detected commercial usage and will time out in 5 minutes. Not only that it bugs out and ends the session after 10 seconds.
The only thing I use teamviewer is to change videos from my bed or to upload files from my computerto my octoprint when im downstairs by my 3D printer. I have no idea where it is detecting commercial usage since i've used this software for years without a problem.
I have no idea how to go about fixing this and will be rather disapointed if I have to end up uninstalling the software.1 -
**Third Party Product** would be a great alternative but you have to pay to use the clipboard so its kinda as worthless as TV is right now.
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"How come nobody mentions **third party product**"
Because they are too busy filtering out "third party products" to be bothered with addressing this issue.1 -
I need access to a couple of computers at a remote site. The problem with using **Third Party Product** is that you need a public IP. I currently have that (and access to the computers using a different **Third Party Product** application) but I don't trust the ISP not to change their policy. Obviously, if they stop issuing public IPs I will lose access. I trialled a similar product (think berry) and after a while it informed me that the software on the remote computer could not be accessed because the software was not current. That is stupid for software that is designed for remote access.
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