CrossLoop: Remote Access service for Free
By Vivek | December 27th, 2006 at 02:30 pm ET
Over the past weekend I discovered another cool desktop sharing software, CrossLoop. CrossLoop is pretty straight forward in the functionality it offers- complete application and screen sharing with remote access to your PC for the person on the end.
Just download and install the CrossLoop client on your Windows machine, and you are ready to host your screen sharing session. CrossLoop generates a unique access code that you need to share with the other meeting participant on the other before he/she can join the meeting. As for security, CrossLoop encrypts all the communication between the 2 ends using a strong 128-bit blowfish encryption algorithm.
I am not sure about CrossLoop’s future plans but we should definitely see more features being added to CrossLoop that can make it a good option for team based use.
CrossLoop’s free remote access and sharing application should soon make it difficult for Citrix’s GoToMyPc/GoToAssist or Netopia’s Timbuktu to charge for their entry level services. CrossLoop is free, GoToMyPc costs $19.95/mo, and Timbuktu Pro Twin-pack costs $159.95. I think it is matter of time before the personal use market goes to CrossLoop. You can check my earlier post about newer webconferencing softwares like Unyte which are also providing their services for free as compared to paid ones from WebEx or GotoMeeting.
My only concern is - Are we helping grow more conferencing and sharing monsters by supporting these newer free apps. What stops them from charging their users tomorrow, when they have been deployed all over the machines owned by SMBs and individual users? Maybe we can find ourselves looking for a new conferencing app every 6 months or so.
Related:
Unyte and Soapbox IM add-ons
Links:
CrossLoop
on December 27th, 2006 at 6:07 pm
I share the concern: any commercial (non-open source) product must have a clear business idea behind what they are doing. If it’s just free - you don’t know what to expect: getting you into dependability - then charge? using your information for marketing? adware? or worse? Understanding how the product makes profit makes users (even free users) comfortable with using it. In fact, the other product that is mentioned here (Unyte) does it pretty well: the division between free and premium services makes perfect sense. You use free for viral adoption, premium for making money. That’s exactly the “long tail” effect that everyone is talking about.
on December 27th, 2006 at 8:07 pm
Vivek - first a big thanks from all of us at CrossLoop for bringing our product to your readers. Being from India originally myself, it is also personally very neat to see CrossLoop being “discovered” there keeping in mind the large tech support market there.
To address your question and Jason’s comment, let me assure you and your readers that the CrossLoop product, as is, will ALWAYS be free. We will add premium features after listening learning from our users. I had a post on our blog (which I highly recommend for future new releases, updates etc which we plan early next year) addressing exactly that - http://crossloop.typepad.com/bringing_people_closer/2006/11/how_is_crossloo.html
Please do feel feel free to share my contact information with any of your readers who have questions or need help.
Have a wonderful 007!
on December 28th, 2006 at 1:07 am
Mrinal,
If you are referring to my location in “CrossLoop being discovered there”, just as a FYI i am in NJ
.
-V
on December 28th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
Ah - I did think you were in India
…..nevertheless I am hoping more and more people in India will discover us soon and if you have any suggestions to make that happen, please let me know Vivek 
on January 2nd, 2007 at 11:56 pm
[…] The web-conferencing and desktop sharing application keeps growing. Another startup that launched last month offering its services in this area is LiveLook.net. Just like CrossLoop, LiveLook is simple and straight forward to get started with. You can either join a session or host one of your own by signing up for the service and installing the java applet for the first time. For business users, LiveLook offers a widget that brings up a LiveLook button on the website using which customers can instantly get technical support. As compared to CrossLoop, LiveLook enables multiple people to view the same desktop, but does not allow remote access to other users. The service is currently free for individual users that works in the p2p mode. […]
on February 22nd, 2007 at 5:17 pm
[…] CrossLoop: Remember the free remote access client from CrossLoop I had written about last year and expressed my doubts about how long the service will remain free? After exchanging few messages with Mrinal Desai at CrossLoop, it seems they are really serious about maintaining the free version while adding premium plan with additional features pretty soon. In the meantime CrossLoop team is cranking out localized version of the client which will be available in 21 different languages from 27th Feb. Supported languages will now include Spanish, French, Italian, Chinese, German, Dutch, Portuguese, and Hindi among others. […]
on June 23rd, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Hi, I would like to thanks all the team at crosslopp who did a wonderful job on this super software. I have about 15 of my custumers who l’m doing some remote servicing. It works great and everybody love this one. No need to open port on the router…
Thanks again.
Lewis form Montreal
on August 14th, 2008 at 8:24 am
I agree with the above comments, very few services of value and commercial use can remain free. For remote access, I find Techinline (www.techinline.com) to be the perfect solution since it is a pay-for service which guarantees uptime, support, security, while also being a fraction of the cost of the other services mentioned above such as Teamviewer, LogMeIn, VNC, etc. Their monthly plan is only $30 for as many connections as you need, and it is very easy to use since there is no installation needed. I think it will be one of the industry leaders in the near future
on August 17th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
I am trying out Croossloop now and also “Go to Assist Express” (now in beta and free during the beta period).
G2A Express should cost around $69/month I believe, at least according to their beta blog.
G2A has some features Crossloop does not, like the ability to initiate unattended sessions (clients installs always-running software on the target machine. Useful when you need to do something after-hours). Also, allows for ten CONCURRENT sessions in a tabbed interfaced. This is very cool and makes the monthly fee more palatable (assuming you have this much remote tech support business).
on August 18th, 2008 at 9:01 am
You want to say i should shell out 70 bucks, for almost same feature set or for features which most of the users dont require, when i can get them for free? I dont seem to buy that.