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No settings, less features


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Bigbluebird

No settings, less features, and more expensive than synergy 1. The only reason I bought it was because since 1 doesn't seem to be updated it wont even connect to one of my clients.

2 doesn't put an icon in the task bar and has no ability to get around any power saving mechanisms. Computer goes to sleep? too bad. Computer locked? too bad. Computer rebooted? too bad. With all these scenarios it's impossible for me to ever actually disconnect the keyboard and mouse from my other computer totally defeating the purpose of this app. 

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Trash is a bit vulgar, but probably more appropriate than the developers care to admit. This feels like a very half-baked piece of software that was put out too early as a money grab.

Need specifics?

  • Lack of taskbar control or active notification
  • No ability to change settings beyond the most basic placement of screens
  • No power management integration or overrides.
  • Removal of a number of features that had been present in Synergy 1 for years
    • Hot corners
    • Hot keys
    • I should just paste a picture of the various settings screens....
  • Too many "promised" features not currently available.

Since Synergy 1 met all my needs and then some, and Synergy 2 doesn't come close to providing me what Synergy 1 did - is there a refund process?

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Bigbluebird

The "share from" button doesn't even allow you to switch what computer is sharing keyboard and mouse. I appear to be locked into the first one I picked. Locking a mac also makes it so even if you manually unlock it the client never reconnects until the service is restarted. :S

It's also not aware of monitor size and thinks all resolutions are the same making the transition between screens not smooth. 

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There is a refund process... contact Tech Support and they'll be happy to assist. Again, these are all valid issues; I don't think it's a money grab, more like "A lot of emphasis was placed on zero-configuration and removing potential user error traps and too little was placed on customization and feature carryover". Nick and the team are well aware of that and are working to correct it.

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Perhaps you could describe the beta/testing process that led you to release this software? Maybe the roadmap and timing of features to bring you back to parity with Synergy 1? It's not even close right now. At best it feel like a very old version of Synergy+ with Bonjour.

I've always liked this product very much . Supported it early. But the monetization (Symless) of Synergy is destroying everything built in the early days. Please reconsider selling this product as it currently stands or risk destroying everything Chris built so many years ago.

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GranPaSmurf

I think I see a couple of things in this thread.

1. There are some problems/issues. You should contact support to open a support ticket - -  support tickets drive development. 

 https://symless.com/contact/customer-support

2. There are rants about how things are and how we got where we are today. If you are not willing to wait it out then [email protected] is for you. Your points are legitimate and good points. However your posts deserve their own thread. 

For those of you who have install or configuration problems, we will try to give you some ideas while you wait for support to respond. 

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Points taken. But please understand most commercial software companies do not ask paying customers to "wait it out" or get a refund. That is a giant red flag.

But I have processed my refund for Synergy 2 Pro and will continue to use my Synergy 1 Pro license that I feel I am receiving value from. The refund process was very painless and I thank you for that.

I just hope you take this criticism as constructive and Symless reconsiders their strategy as you attempt to profit off of a good product trending bad.

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Bigbluebird

I would be working on this thing 24/7 if I was at this company. Honestly your home page goes right to synergy 2 now and barely makes mention of it being a project still in beta missing all these features. If Adobe did this type of thing no one would be waiting 3+ months and everyone would move on to the next product. It shouldn't take the users mentioning each feature specifically that they miss from synergy 1 to have it put into synergy 2. 

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capecutterman

Well, Synergy2 seems to have it's problems.  I haven't tried it because there yet a version for 32-bit Linux - which I need for one of my old boxen, but it sure doesn't seem ready for prime-time.

I'm a little confused at what is being aimed with Synergy2 - the Synergy1 GUI was a bit old-fashioned but perfectly usable, especially for  the sort of people who need Synergy, and configuration really isn't difficult, particularly if you know the addresses of all your boxes; and again the sort of people who use Synergy will probably have set their Routers to reserve local addresses anyway.  I never used Autoconfig, but presumably it broadcasts on the local net for other Synergy boxen (or uses Bonjour).   I don't use SSL because I don't need it on my local net and it slows response down noticeably.

Synergy is mostly useful when you can SEE the other screens and just want to use a single mouse/keyboard to interact with them - a software KVM, as it were.  If I need to SEE the other screen then I'll use Remote Desktop (or nomachine), which have good Mac and Linux clients and are designed for just that.   For Synergy2 to have to "phone-home", even if it is just to establish a local connection seems an odd design decision, even if the idea is a zeroconf Synergy - just one more service to babysit and one more attack-vector.

I do wish Nick, (or one of the other wise men)  would explain WHY we need a Synergy2  [I bought it 'cos I love Nick and Symless ;-) ] , a bit about its architecture and what it's advantages are be over Synergy1, which does everything I need it to do no-muss no-fuss.

Anyone?  Peace and love - Mac

 

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Bigbluebird

I would just like to point out someone must have been offended by me calling this software trash because they pulled a spez and edited my title. 

 

Also I am 5 emails in with the refund person and I still have no hopes of getting a refund. They beat around the bush by telling me to update to the new version that came out even though they know full well the new version doesn't add features. 

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Cakoluchiam

As a previous user of Synergy 1, I very much appreciate the Synergy 2 update. Not being able to config custom things yet is kind of lame, but not having to config the basic things like I did in Synergy 1 is quite valuable.

Keep in mind they've still promised future support for many of the features you've come to know and love (and you knew this when you bought it), and if Synergy 2's ability to actually connect the client isn't more valuable than the features you got from Synergy 1, nobody's stopping you from continuing to use Synergy 1 on the machines it works on, until the features you want are available on the new program.

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GranPaSmurf

Yeah, I would say someone was offended. Please remember this is a self support forum with a few experienced users willing to spend our personal time trying to help you. 

Synergy 2.0 implies to some that it's a more in-depth, more technical version. That's not what it's designed to be. It's a install and forget system that doesn't need an IT Professional. 

Sorry you're offended by that. 

If you want to get a refund but can't, then I'm going to look into that. I have a few contact channels that you don't. I'm going to try to get your money back to you just to get you off our user forum. 

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Bigbluebird

If anything offends me it's the no criticism allowed, editing peoples posts, and now making fake shill accounts. Combined with telling people to get a refund when they ask simple questions about usability.

There is 0 install and forget. This product has been out for a long time now with next to no improvement or any signs of it on the horizon especially with this combative and defensive attitude. You can go back and see many other posts about the same thing from months and months ago. At this point beating around the bush is getting us nowhere. As most people here are in agreement the current state of synergy 2 is trash. Hopefully that realization wakes up the developer.

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9 hours ago, Jeffrey Hornak said:

It's time to consider a fork. Scan the forum and you'll find many capable, disgruntled, fans of Synergy+/Synergy1. This is a shame.

synergy-core is open source, so there's no reason someone can't begin work on a new GUI solution; the problem is finding people willing to dedicate their time to do so voluntarily. The benefit of Symless monetizing this product is that it guarantees development, including for the open source components, which has value to me. I recently have switched back to 2, and have gotten used to its quirks, but if someone started a new solution (based on the existing foundation) that was offline-only, I would certainly switch until 2.1 is released with offline support, at the very least. I have faith in Symless and Nick releasing 2.1 with all of the features I need (configuration panel, offline mode, lock server selection, etc) eventually, but I would be interested in other options in the meantime.

There's no reason a spiritual continuation of 1 cannot coexist with 2, and I don't think such a fork would cut into their business, considering they are focusing on a new user-base that is not predominantly power-users. I imagine the intention of the autoconf strategy is to target enterprise networks and sell more office licenses, which gives Symless the opportunity to get more valuable feedback and implement features that may not have been comprehensible in the past. I think both have their place, for now.

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GranPaSmurf

Synergy 2.06 was released Monday. So far, with 2 startups and several hours of use, it is working perfectly. I haven't had to open the UI on any of the 4 computers.

 

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also polish national signs are not working in Synergy 2 (unlike in Synergy 1) trying to enter them, just causes cursor to jump to the mother screen - it is a badly written and badly tested product, a waste of money. Even free version of Synergy 1.x is much better than 2. Does anyone know if I can still purchase Synergy 1? I would be grateful for the link. Can I do it through this account or I would have to create a new one? Thanks for any help, synergy support stopped replying to my complains, even though they initially offered free access to synergy 1 until they fix the issue, but of course later they just told me to download 2.0.6, that not fixed nor improved nothing.

I also can't install Synergy 1.9.0 on my second computer - it causes it to freeze during install and during every time i try to boot it on "Welcome" screen (only possible to fix it in safe mode by renaming the installation folder), but I think I will try some lower versions until I get one that works. Bad programming...

I can't do my job properly with Synergy 2, please help guys. If purchasing 1 is not possible anymore, I will just have to go back to buggy free version.

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I just got Synergy 2 and the main page https://symless.com/synergy says under "Check out the Newest Features" that "SSL Encryption" is one of them.

I don't see any way to configure or verify any settings.

Does Synergy 2 use SSL Encryption by default?

How can I verify that SSL Encryption is turned on?

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GranPaSmurf

It's my understanding that, yes, SSL is on when Synergy 2.xx is installed. That's one of the purposes of the auto-configuration. The responsibility for making SSL work is in the cloud configuration.

As it stands now, the kind of 'under-the-hood' information you are looking for will a feature of Synergy 2.1.

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Bu that logic it should work by default. (of course if there are no programming errors)
Symless forgot though that by "making program that even an idiot can use, only idiot will want to use it" :(
'Advanced options' button wouldn't hurt.
 

4 minutes ago, aboutin said:

I just got Synergy 2 and the main page https://symless.com/synergy says under "Check out the Newest Features" that "SSL Encryption" is one of them.

I don't see any way to configure or verify any settings.

Does Synergy 2 use SSL Encryption by default?

How can I verify that SSL Encryption is turned on?

 

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Bigbluebird

How can you say these are 'projected features'. The site automatically takes you to the synergy 2 purchase page, there seems to be no option to get synergy one, and it only says in small font under certain items that it is not working. We have been waiting a long time for some of those features to be implemented and so far nothing has happened. At the very minimum, the website should say in big font this is BETA software with no features and not small font on the bottom. Very misleading when it's advertised as an advanced program. 

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The development team is WELL aware of the need for knobs to twiddle, and SSL is one of them. Bear in mind that the current release is supposed to be ZERO-CONFIGURATION and therefore will not work for everyone. Tech support can help you get Synergy 1, and if they're not forthcoming, please post details here -- including times, dates, and who you communicated with.

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