I got turned on to Hamachi recently. It’s a free (as in beer, not speech) piece of software that creates a secure connection between multiple computers (Windows, MacOS or Linux). The connected systems appear, to each other, to be stitting on the same local network, so all of the services that you can use when your laptop and desktop are in the same place (like Windows file sharing, iTunes music sharing, games) can now be used wherever you happen to be.
This sort of virtual private network (VPN) software is nothing new. But the ease of setup and use that Hamachi provides is. You just install the software, choose a nickname for yourself and you’re up. It takes about 60 seconds to do and once you’ve done it, you can join and create networks at will. It even works if both systems are behind firewalls (more on this later).
One thing I’ve been using Hamachi for is to tunnel my traffic safely out of public WiFi hotspots. I fire up Hamachi, then funnel all my traffic back through a proxy server running on my PC at home. It’s encrypted end-to-end, so anyone who is sniffing wifi packets won’t see anything. And I don’t need to pay for an extra service—it just piggybacks over my existing fiber connection at home.
Hamachi’s business model is interesting. The software and basic service is free, but they have a “premium” service that costs $4.95/month per license. Many of the features that the premium service enables aren’t interesting to me (increased number of members in your network, ability to make other members “network administrators”), but the one big win is that you get access to the “high bandwidth” mediation servers.
Since Hamachi networks are created peer-to-peer, most connections don’t generate significant amounts of traffic that the Hamachi servers need to mediate. But if both endpoints are behind firewalls, a mediation server is required. Non-paying customers get use the “low bandwidth” relays, while paying customers get access to the “high bandwidth” relays. When I’ve needed to use the low bandwidth relays, they have been a bit swampy at times. I may sign up for a license at some point to get access to the better relays and to support the service.
Posted by pmk at July 6, 2006 2:43 AM | TrackBack