Remobo 0.72.1 is available now

For those who have been waiting patiently on the next release of Remobo, here's the latest public version of Remobo that's made available today: v0.72.1

The major changes in this release are the connectivity supports of TCP networking that makes Remobo works better in corporate environment.  Also included are tons of minor bug fixes in all major platforms to make it more reliable at both login and runtime.

The past year has been a roller-coaster ride for the Remobo team. We've seen quite a few interests in integrating Remobo into all sorts of services & devices, and have been busy working on some of them.  We'll try make some of these works available for public releases in the coming versions of Remobo.  Meanwhile, if you have any suggestions on how things shoudl be done in Remobo, don't hesitate to write us about your ideas.  You can leave your comments here, or email it to "idea (at) remobo (dot) com"

Stay tuned.

Announcing Remobo 0.60.0 with Proxy Browsing

We're happy to announce the latest version of Remobo today!  We've greatly improved the service and are also introducing a brand new built-in application called "Proxy Browser".  Proxy Browser allows you to browse the web through a secure proxy server running within Remobo. This means you can browse the web through any other device on your buddy list. The connection between your current device and the device you are browsing through is completely secure.

What can you do with Proxy Browsing?

• Browse securely through your home computer while you are on public wifi hotspots
• Browse through the firewall at work or school and access content like Facebook and YouTube
• Access content from other countries and regions that are otherwise locked (like Hulu, Pandora, PBS, BBC, iPlayer, iView, NBC, CBS, FOX, ABC & more!)

Why use Remobo's proxy solution?

• 100% secure browsing
• More versatile than web based proxies
• Connect to known endpoints
• Create your own endpoints or connect through friends

We hope you enjoy this update and new application!

 

How secure is your data in the cloud?

Earlier last week, something bad happened at the cloud storage provider Dropbox:  for 4 hours you could log in to anyone’s Dropbox folder with any password.  This was an inadvertent operational error which happened during an update where some bugs were introduced in Dropbox’s authentication code.

“This should never have happened”, stated the Dropbox CTO on their blog, but it did happen, and security breaches like this are doomed to happen again at many of these Cloud Service Providers, as a result of either operational mistakes or malicious hacking.

This incident highlights a fundamental problem with Cloud-based service:  with its centralized architecture, Cloud-based services are vulnerable to mistakes from the Cloud Service Provider itself, as well as uninvited hacking from anyone with access to the Cloud.

It boils down to how much trust you have for your Cloud Service Provider to protect your data.  Most consumer-oriented Cloud services are trading some level of security for ease of use, by making it easy for users to log in with a single password, instead of a full set of encryption keys.  In this scenario, the Cloud Service Provider owns your security credentials, and you do not have much control over it.  All you can do is cross your fingers and give your “trust” to the Service Provider.

 
But even the best trusted service provider makes mistakes in their operations, and worse yet, the bigger and more trustworthy they are, the more likely they are to lure hackers looking to attack and find their vulnerabilities, just like a honeypot attracting bees.  A recent example is RSA, the well-know security firm founded by the inventors of public/private key encryption algorithms.  RSA’s widely popular SecureID product has been deployed by countless organizations as an anti-hacking mechanism to protect their security, and yet itself has been hacked back in March 2011.  The victims include Department of Defense contractor Lockheed Martin, whose virtual private networks were compromised two months later for its “defense secrets and related IP”.

 
So what can you do?  You probably should not put data in the cloud if you are not willing to give it away.  For sensitive private data, if you really have to put it in the cloud, you should at least encrypt the data with strong encryption, with keys owned only by you.  To manage the encryption keys yourself can be quite a hassle, and there’s the trade-off between strong security and ease-of-use: not everyone knows how to encrypt their data, and even fewer can manage their security keys easily by themselves.  It’s a difficult job to figure out how to make a consumer-focused produce/service like Remobo easy to use for every one, while keeping it secure by empowering users to have full control over their own security credentials.   And we at the Remobo team are trying hard to strike the balance between these two needs for our users.

 
It’s time to take control of your own security, and Remobo is here to help you.

 

MAC OS X problem of MobileMe/Back-to-My-MAC

For the latest MAX OS X versions of 10.6.5 and 10.6.6, we have observed the problem of inteference with Remobo's Virtual Interface from MobileMe/Back-to-My-MAC:

MAC OS X problem of MobileMe/Back-to-My-MAC

The Remobo team is building workaround for this problem now, and it'll be available in the next release.  Meanwhile, you can apply the 1-command workaround above to get it fixed for now.  Let us know of your feedbacks here.

 

UPDATE: This problem has been fixed in Remobo v0.50.6, by automatically restoring the Remobo Virtual IP address that's deleted by Back-to-My-MAC.   We still think it's an Apple's bug on MobileMe/Back-to-My-MAC, though our Remobo users don't have to worry about it, after v0.50.6.

Go PRO! Introducing Remobo v0.50

After a laborious 2010, the Remobo team is excited to announce the latest release of Remobo v0.50 at the beginning of the new year. This marks a significant milestone for the Remobo Service:  the PRO features has finally arrived.

Here’s the New Year Resolution list for v0.50:

PRO Features

We’ve completed re-architecture the whole Remobo program and separate it into front-end user interface and back-end service modules.  This allows Remobo to run in Unattended-Mode and support AutoStart Service.  It also means you can finally control Remobo Service via the newly debuted Command-Line Interface (CLI) for Remobo. These PRO features are handy for things like media center, file sharing server, database server, source repositories, and any type of servers that you wanna be able to connect to remotely without attentions.

Better User Experience

The #1 complains over the past versions was the user registration process.  We’ve completed redesigned the registration flow, and now you can register from either the Remobo program or web site

Notice that the Remobo Forum is now integrated with the Remobo user database, which means you can use the same Remobo UserID and password to sign on the Forum and make your post.  Because of this single-sign-on Account consolidation, we are unable to migrate the old Forum's user & their contents into the new one. Let us know if this is a problem for you.

Also, all 3 platforms are updated in this release. This has become a tradition & commitment for Remobo team to always maintain the latest versions across all 3 major platforms of Windows, Mac,and Linux, while providing the same, consistent user experiences on all of them.

Quality Improvements

There’re literally hundreds of bug fixes that go into v0.50. Kudos to the Remobo team and thanks for all of you who provides comments and bug reports  There’s also a great deal of performance enhancement under the hood.  We’re confident that Remobo offers one of the fastest VPN solutions you can find today.

New Website and Logo

A Remobo Logo contest was held earlier last year, and we are met with a lot of ensuthiastic designers over the contest.  The winner is now unveiled along with the new web site layout.  We hope you enjoy the new slick design of the logo and the website. Be sure to visit the new Forums and give us your feedbacks. Remember you now have integrated account on both the Remobo web site and the Remobo program, by using your existing Remobo UserID. You can register your Remobo Account here if you don't have one yet.

v0.50 is a big achievement for the Remobo team.  Since v0.30, we have trimmed down the integrated Apps, and focus on delivering a high quality, stable, zero-configuration VPN. We've accomplished this mission in v0.50. Going onward, we'll bring back the Integrated Apps like VNC and others. Be sure to voice out your favorite apps on Remobo through the new Forums, or to email to us at the usual address: "support (at) remobo (dot) com".

Stay tuned for more!

 

Remobo 0.40.10 is out

Hi everyone!  We just released an update that fixes lots of stability issues and other bugs.  You can find it on our download page for Windows, MAC and Linux as usual. Get it here!

Remobo 0.40.8 is Now Available

The latest version of Remobo is now available for Windows, MAC and Linux!  This version has a huge number of bug fixes and promises to be more stable than ever.  We have also stripped out the plugin applications as we want to focus on the core application.  You can still run apps such as VNC, Remote Desktop, file sharing and more over Remobo of course... its just not built into the menu system anymore.  We will be adding things back once the main application is rock solid again. Thanks!

You Can Grab Remobo 0.40.8 Here

Thanks!