commercial use suspected, limited to 5 minutes!

[VsUK]

OK, firstly. I have installed teamviewer on my families computers including my children's at my own home & at their mums & all my other families computers. Now, whenever they have a problem. Rather than getting in the car & travelling miles to go have a look. Or bang my head against the wall trying to figure out what my granddad is trying to explain to me. I simply pop on, take a look & 5-10 minutes I usually have resolved the issue.

Now, all of a sudden I'm getting commercial use suspected & keep being kicked off every 5 minutes & blocked for 2 or 3 minutes after that!

This software is free for personal use! This is personal use. I make no money from it & it is simply to save me time & hassle of travelling to fix or take a look at my families or my kids computers. There's no way in hell I'm going to pay £350 a year just to be able to connect to my families computers a few times a month!

Not impressed at all & as a Business license holder for my business so I can see all systems on the network easily, so I know the difference between commercial & private use. I am now going to look elsewhere for remote desktop service because the attitude I've been given from my support ticket was appalling accusing me of abusing the personal use for commercial use which is basically accusing me of being a liar!

[Danl]

When you are kicked off, does a message come up on your screen saying that's why you're being kicked off (is that what you mean by "getting commercial use suspected") or did you have to get that info from TV support staff?

There are a few stories running around about this happening, and it would be interesting to know what kind of user behavior triggers it.

[VsUK]

Sorry for late reply. I completely forgot about this post.

Well when i connect to my families computers every now & again to fix issue's or just to share opinions on what there looking at. I get a pop up before it lets me to connect saying commercial use suspected & recommends me to buy a licence & that the session will expire after 5 minutes.

Then, when 5 minutes are up. It says my session has expired & I am blocked for 2 minutes. If I wish to continue using it unrestricted, I should buy a license.
Now, I've been using this for a few years & not once have I ever been triggered for commercial use suspected until recently. I use this for work commercially & I know the difference. I think if it says Free for private use. It should be Free for private use. If connecting to computers all over the country or the world, then you could have a case for commercial use suspected. But my family live near by or in the neighbouring city literally 20 mins drive away!

I am so annoyed with them as they have ignored my support ticket about this which I have sent via my paid service & the free option regarding this which I did prior to starting this thread!

But If you bare with me. I will post with screen shots of what happens when I connect to my sons pc in the other bedroom in the same house!

[VsUK]

OK, photo's attached of when I connect.

I get this when I first connect.


I get this that's hidden under the above when I close



I get this afte 5 minutes



Then this when I try & re connect

[Danl]

Thanks for the image posts. Though of course the distance to your Teamviewer contacts is irrelevant. If I connect from one side of my desktop to the other side, it's going through national, and perhaps even international servers. I have to wonder what you're doing over your free TV connection that triggers this. Are you using commercial software packages? The message does refer to detected "software that seems to be used in commercial environments". I dunno, maybe you're pulling up a SalesForce screen? Wordpress? Drupal?

If you want to do the research, there seems to be a lot a of discussion online about this. Just Google software 'commercial environments' Teamviewer. There seem to be ways to fix this, but they seem to involve changing the MAC address of your machine, which can be a big effort.

[VsUK]

I don't do any processing or or web editing of any kind over teamviewer. I have recently done fresh installs of windows 10 on my 3 son's comps & the first thing I installed was teamviewer so I can install & so forth without being sat in their room.

I've been doing the same thing for the passed 2 years or so without problems. Fresh installs of windows 7, 8 & 10. What I do over teamviewer hasn't really changed until recently when it decided to say otherwise. I know exactly what commercial environment is because I use it for my business. But, from the ticket response I got accusing me of basically telling lies & abusing the free personal use has meant after the remaining 4 months are up on my license, I won't be renewing & going elsewhere.

There's no justification or reason why its been flagged as commercial & what I do at the other end be it editing word, websites or whatever. People do that stuff privately for themselves out of enjoyment of doing it. Doesn't make it a commercial activity.

Anyways, I ain't messing around with system macs because I have to change a whole load of other settings if I do. It simply isn't worth the effort either. Been  using it for years but from the attitude i've got from them. I won't be for much longer & I have already found a free alternative that does exactly what i need & doesn't encrypt it via their own networks slowing down speed & basically trusting them with your info! I wont be recommending it to any of my business colleague's either!

There's also a case of false advertising because a Swedish guy did a few tests in lab conditions & found certain activities that are not commercially linked trigger the commercial use suspected. He used word processors, html editors to even youtube over teamviewer which triggered the commercial use. So claiming it's free for personal use is very misleading!

[Admin]

curious what alternative you have found !

[Danl]

reference for those Swedish lab tests, please?