Hamachi’s new competitor
By Joe • Nov 8th, 2007 • Category: Software
Hamachi is one of my favorite cross-platform applications/services and now they have a competitor. I remember using them back when they were pre-1.0 and when LogMeIn hadn't bought them yet. For those of you who haven't heard of Hamachi, it is basically an app that you install on your PC/Mac/*Nix and it allows you to create instant VPN connections, without fussing with firewalls or SSH tunnels.
(on a side note:I remember using Hamachi on my work PC about 2 years ago, to connect to my home pc, which I had turned into a proxy server, because they were blocking port 80. I surfed without my bosses knowing and it was awesome.)
Well, now Leaf Networks has entered the scene, and their application Leaf is available for Windows XP and Vista (Linux version coming soon according to their website). 
Installing it is pretty much straight-forward, the same goes for creating an account. I installed the app on my work pc and my home pc and I was able to see my files as well as view my shared iTunes library just as I was able to with Hamachi. Leaf gives you more configuration options than Hamachi, such as file-sharing permissions, but I still like how simple and easy Hamachi is, where there is no need to sign-up for an account, for example.
Leaf still is in development and it's sort of unfair to compare to Hamachi, which was been around for 2-3 years now, but the software/service does look promising and worth keeping and eye out for.
[Via LifeHacker] [Also posted on Gadgetell]
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