Works great, very feature rich

Pros: The free version provides really nice and very responsive remote screen control, with a lot of nice features. The new version makes it a lot easier to change screen resolution and colors on the fly, and it has some other nice features (such as the laser pointer) for helping a user at the remote system.

LogMeIn is a lot better than dynamic IP services if you need access to PCs that don't have fixed IPs. Also, it's much easier with LMI to access multiple PCs that go through a NAT router. With Windows remote desktop, VNC, etc. you have to manually configure unique port #s on each machine and then forward those ports in the router. With LMI, you just set up the app on each PC; from then on, you just click it from a list on the LMI site.

I actually switched five PCs -- that are over 2500 miles away -- from VNC to LMI...I installed and configured LogMeIn using VNC, then logged back in through LMI and disabled the VNC software. Now I don't have to leave all those ports open through the firewall for VNC.

Cons: Some cool features, esp. the transferring files between the remote and local machines, require the paid service, which is expensive. I bought it for a year for my home machine on a half-off promo deal; but the regular prices are too high and the multi-user discount is too small. Fortunately, you can do a lot with the free version.

Posted: 17-Jan-2008 12:48:54 PM

Way more trouble than it's worth

Pros: Installs easily, interface is not bad.

Cons: Unless you're a propellerhead who enjoys stuff like writing firewall rules, you basically have three choices. "Train with safe mode" seems to automatically create rules to allow everything - what's the point of having a firewall if it allows everything? "Custom Policy Mode" means you have to hand-code rules for everything. "Block all mode" means that nothing works.

Despite Comodo's tendency to allow everything, I never managed to get inbound remote desktop connections to work. Lots of other people seem to be having the same problem, based on posts in the Comodo forums.

So the firewall part seems to exist to make your internet apps unusable. Comodo also includes Defense+, which apparently is intended to make the apps on your PC unusable when they are not accessing the network. Or it can just learn and allow everything, which is equally pointless.

The program is a pain to uninstall, because the uninstaller does an incomplete job. There's a 30-45 minute procedure posted in the Comodo user forums on how to manually remove all the, um, stuff that's left behind. I wish I had never installed this thing.

Posted: 02-Jan-2008 01:28:44 PM