CrossLoop – The next generation of tech support

I am thrilled at a new service called CrossLoop. It allows me to access and view the computer screen and use mouse and keyboard on someone else’ computer with their permission. Now this technology has already been around, but not in the simple form that I have found this to be in. This is great for quick tech support issues and calls that are just too complicated to explain to the user.

The steps are so simple it’s not even funny. It seems to work through firewalls and everything. I have only had one time I didn’t seem to work and now that I’ve tried it some more I’m thinking I just should have tried it again with that user and it would have worked.

Tell the person you want to do the tech support with to go to crossloop.com, click on the Free Download link on the left center side of the page about halfway down. It’ll ask them to either Run or Save it (for most users tell them to run it, as they don’t know everything about temporary files and where to save programs like this). The program will ask you what language, to approve the EULA, a few other simple things and then conveniently launch the program for the user (as long as they leave the check box checked to do so). Have them click the “Share” tab and give you their access code. You enter it in on your end and have them hit ‘connect’ while you hit connect too. It may raise a red flag on a firewall but just tell them to accept or unblock. You may to have them disconnect and then reconnect again (you doing the same) the first time to get through the firewall.

At that point their screen will come up on your screen and if they are like most users they’ll have some very low resolution set and you’ll be on some huge monitor with a high resolution. You’ll be able then to walk them through what ever they are working on or take over the computer for them and let them see what you are doing. I had one user report when they were trying to view my huge screen that it took quite a while to update. But for me it isn’t or hasn’t been a problem!

So far this program has been worth so much to me!!! I’m loving it and it’s free, quick and simple and gets through the tons of firewalls that we all have to have enabled. The only downside is, it is connecting to a server so potentially who ever runs CrossLoop could see what you are doing on your computer (which usually isn’t an issue for me anyway). Otherwise great program!