Synergy - Software KVM
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It's definitely worth buying a license. I used to use it with my old laptop. I would have a dual monitor setup on my desktop and my laptop off to the side. It is really nice when you have to work with something across the building and need to pickup and go and are too lazy to have to be bothered with unhooking cables or detaching from a dock.
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@aaronstuder said in Synergy - Software KVM:
Anyone pay for it?
I got the pro for $29 lifetime
That's good. Monthly subscription models aren't bad but they are much more painful. I love owning something forever and not having to worry about reoccurring payments.
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@Minion-Queen said in Synergy - Software KVM:
It does work locally over the LAN (but the home computer is called the server) does it via IP address. I wonder if it would work over a VPN but haven't tested that out.
I don't picture doing it this way since it's always used where you can see the monitors of each computer running Synergy. I know it works over SSH though, and that would essentially be about the same objective as doing it over a VPN connection.
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The Pro version now offers SSL support, and they have a deal going on for another few hours where you can get Pro for $8 (if you already have "basic"; which I do). So it ends up only costing about $18 total for a lifetime license.
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I got the $8 deal via email as well. It was worth it... And timely. I was planning to set my Mac back up next to my PC again to use it some more... and I get that email 5 minutes later... Talk about a sign, lol.
The new version works really well!
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I was about to install this on my LM box,.. but remember that since it's across the room, it's not going to give me much benefit. I do have it on my desktop/laptop,.. but am not currently using it...
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I just got this again. Life changing. I'd used it before in the past, but being able to use both my Windows 10 laptop and Mac Mini with one set of keyboard and mouse makes my standing desk actually feasible.
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The only problem I had with it before, and still have with it now, is that I need to lock my windows and Mac machines with a single shortcut.
Whenever I set up a shortcut key, whatever key that I use to set it up, will no longer allow me the use of the capital version of that letter, no matter which shift key I press.
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Synergy Sale is on for another day if you're still on the fence!
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@dafyre said in Synergy - Software KVM:
The only problem I had with it before, and still have with it now, is that I need to lock my windows and Mac machines with a single shortcut.
Whenever I set up a shortcut key, whatever key that I use to set it up, will no longer allow me the use of the capital version of that letter, no matter which shift key I press.
I've never used it cross platform, but the way I do it on my Windows boxes is I always lock the screen (using a Launchy shortcut) on the client box(es) first, then I lock my server box with Win+L. If you lock the server box first, you can lose control to the client box (at least that what I've seen many times with previous versions (I still haven't updated to the latest version yet).
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Pretty cool. Does it run on ARM? Can't find anything about supported platforms in the FAQ.
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@thwr said in Synergy - Software KVM:
Pretty cool. Does it run on ARM? Can't find anything about supported platforms in the FAQ.
Here's a couple of links that may or may not help
https://github.com/symless
https://github.com/symless/synergy-android-cyanogen
https://learn.adafruit.com/synergy-on-raspberry-pi/intro-what-is-synergy (this one mentions that a version IS available for ARM, but may not quite be up to snuff yet) -
@Shuey said in Synergy - Software KVM:
The Pro version now offers SSL support
Security should be part of the product. I know the price difference is tiny but It's never great when a company charges more for the security of their clients.
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@Breffni-Potter said in Synergy - Software KVM:
@Shuey said in Synergy - Software KVM:
The Pro version now offers SSL support
Security should be part of the product. I know the price difference is tiny but It's never great when a company charges more for the security of their clients.
I definitely understand where you're coming from, but I think there have actually been a lot of Synergy users over the years who really haven't been concerned (or even cared at all) about the security of the data between the server and clients. The reason that they finally added support is likely because it wasn't until recently that they started to get a larger number of customers requesting it. And since they're providing a for-profit service, it's not out of the ordinary at all for them to charge extra for it (especially since some of their customers are large corporations who specifically require it, while other customers such as families or small businesses would rather pay less for a version that doesn't include anything extra that they woudn't need or care about).
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@Shuey said in Synergy - Software KVM:
@Breffni-Potter said in Synergy - Software KVM:
@Shuey said in Synergy - Software KVM:
The Pro version now offers SSL support
Security should be part of the product. I know the price difference is tiny but It's never great when a company charges more for the security of their clients.
I definitely understand where you're coming from, but I think there have actually been a lot of Synergy users over the years who really haven't been concerned (or even cared at all) about the security of the data between the server and clients. The reason that they finally added support is likely because it wasn't until recently that they started to get a larger number of customers requesting it. And since they're providing a for-profit service, it's not out of the ordinary at all for them to charge extra for it (especially since some of their customers are large corporations who specifically require it, while other customers such as families or small businesses would rather pay less for a version that doesn't include anything extra that they woudn't need or care about).
We are talking about a product that sends mouse movements and keystrokes over the wire. Even if the traffic is abstracted by some API, that could easily be read because the underlying product is open source. So what happens when you enter a password on a "remote" machine?
I'm with @Breffni-Potter here, strong transport level encryption should be a basic feature for such a sensible product. I would happily pay for other features, maybe connecting more than two or three machines or an increased feature set (clipboard transfer etc.). At least they do suggest using SSH port forwarding in their FAQ: https://github.com/symless/synergy/wiki/User-FAQ#What_securityencryption_does_synergy_provide
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@Shuey said in Synergy - Software KVM:
@Breffni-Potter said in Synergy - Software KVM:
@Shuey said in Synergy - Software KVM:
The Pro version now offers SSL support
Security should be part of the product. I know the price difference is tiny but It's never great when a company charges more for the security of their clients.
I definitely understand where you're coming from, but I think there have actually been a lot of Synergy users over the years who really haven't been concerned...And since they're providing a for-profit service, it's not out of the ordinary at all for them to charge extra for it.
As a technology company, is it right to charge any of your customers more for the ability to stay safe and secure? Regardless if the customer is aware of such a feature.
The ONLY difference between the editions is SSL and Helpdesk, 0 feature differences, helpdesk is a big expense in labour so justifiably a higher cost...SSL on the other hand is just a way of getting more money. Instead of highlighting the added value of pro support, they sent a message which says, for most of our customers, we don't care about their safety or security.
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Prior to the rant, I did email them to ask why they did this. No response. So what does that say about their helpdesk support.
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This is one of just a few pieces of software that I've paid for personally. It's excellent
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Hi All,
Synergy employee here! Nice to see our software being recommended so much. Just wanted to address the SSL discussion, as it's definitely not a way for us to just make more money. A lot of our users are just home users, not business users which are why there are Pro and Basic. Basic is mainly for home users and as such aren't generally as security conscious. If Synergy sent it's data over the internet to our servers or similar, I'd totally agree! SSL would be a must! As the data only goes over the local network, if someone is performing a man-in-the-middle attack on your network I fear you'd have bigger issues than someone watching what you're doing with Synergy. As for business users, their data is often extremely confidential and are more susceptible to network attacks, and as such, we offer SSL support to them. If you'd like SSL on your Basic edition, you're able to setup an SSH tunnel to encrypt the communication.
In regards to the comments about our support times, we know they currently suck
I'm actually the only support engineer at the moment, and we've got quite a large backlog of people to reply to. We'll always get back to you, but sometimes it might take a while.If you've got any other questions, please let me know and I'd be happy to answer them. You may get a quicker response if you email us though, as this isn't an official support channel.
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@Celant said in Synergy - Software KVM:
Hi All,
Synergy employee here! Nice to see our software being recommended so much. Just wanted to address the SSL discussion, as it's definitely not a way for us to just make more money. A lot of our users are just home users, not business users which are why there are Pro and Basic. Basic is mainly for home users and as such aren't generally as security conscious. If Synergy sent it's data over the internet to our servers or similar, I'd totally agree! SSL would be a must! As the data only goes over the local network, if someone is performing a man-in-the-middle attack on your network I fear you'd have bigger issues than someone watching what you're doing with Synergy. As for business users, their data is often extremely confidential and are more susceptible to network attacks, and as such, we offer SSL support to them. If you'd like SSL on your Basic edition, you're able to setup an SSH tunnel to encrypt the communication.
In regards to the comments about our support times, we know they currently suck
I'm actually the only support engineer at the moment, and we've got quite a large backlog of people to reply to. We'll always get back to you, but sometimes it might take a while.If you've got any other questions, please let me know and I'd be happy to answer them. You may get a quicker response if you email us though, as this isn't an official support channel.
Welcome aboard @Celant!
