Android News
Review: Mobile Stream’s EasyTether for non-rooted phones
February 16, 2010 | by Ed Clark
Android Apps, Android Tricks, Commmunication, Reviews, Tips
Good news for owners of non-rooted phones: Mobile Stream’s EasyTether app, already available for Palm, Blackberry, and WinMo users, is now available on the Android Market as a free beta. EasyTether allows you to use your phone’s data connection to provide internet connectivity for your laptop or other device via a USB cable.
Because the app is still in beta, there are still a few things to be ironed out. Only 32-bit Windows (XP/Vista/7) PCs can be tethered for now–64-bit and Mac versions are in the works. There are also plans for Bluetooth capability, which would eliminate the USB cable. The beta expires on February 19, 2010 and pricing is not yet clear. However, the Palm, Blackberry, and WinMo versions sell for $24.95, $9.95, and $19.95, respectively.
Users have confirmed that the application works on the G1, Hero, Droid, Moment and Galaxy, but there are also a few failures being reported, particularly on some Nexus One phones. The folks at Mobile Stream confirmed that they have heard these reports and are looking into the problem. Take this chance to try it for free and see if it works for you.
In addition to installing the application on your phone, EasyTether requires you to install a small app on your Windows machine to enable and disable the connection to your phone. Simply install the app and drivers, fire up EasyTether on your phone and on your PC, and right-click the tray icon to connect. You should now have internet access on your Windows machine. While EasyTether involves a bit more work than rooted tether apps, it is a nice solution for people that can’t or don’t want to root their phones.
Any plans for a Linux version?
Drabnik, I see that Mobile Stream's EasyTether versions for WinMo and Palm are Windows/Mac/Linux compatible, so I would guess that a Linux version makes sense to them. However, it wasn't mentioned in the brief description of their near-term plans. Could be a simple oversight–I'll check with them.
How is this better than PDANet?
It's working for me. Boy, that was easy.
PDA Net works great on my Mac w/snow leopard and droid Eris! Ready to go NOW!!
I have tried the easytether beta app and it works great for me. One thing that I can not do is connect to a VPN with this app. Does anyone know if this is a function of the beta (VPN blocked on the beta). I expect blocking at a trial period but VPN access did not work for me. Happy to pay for this if it can be used to VPN.
Through a little bit of convoluted elbow grease I was able to make EasyTether work on my MacBook. I'm running Windows XP via Parallels. I installed the EasyTether software in Windows and it's working fine.
One caveat: In order to get it online, I had to disconnect the shared network adapter (Click on "Devices" in the Parallels menu bar, then select network adapter and disconnect). This means that my Mac apps do not have internet access. Bummer, I know. But I am able to get online, check e-mail, and do basic functions, and any Windows-based software on my machine can get online with no problem.
I'm working on a way to share the Internet connection from my Windows virtual machine with my Mac. When I do, I'll let everyone know about it.
Not the smoothest way to get online, but it works aces.
I love EasyTether! There is so much misinformation on the web about tethering Droids. As far as I know, both EasyTether and PDA Net disguise traffic as coming from the phone. Not sure if there is a 5 GB / mo. cap from Verizon or not. Most of what I've read says no, since it's not official tethering.
I use my Droid to get internet on my XP64 tower. I share the connection via my tower's Ethernet port using the Windows Internet Connection Sharing Wizard after assigning a static IP to tha onboard card. I reconfigured my wireless router to not run DHCP and keep my computer in the ports NOT labeled 'internet'. All wireless devices in my house now get internet via the Droid. This is my solution till my good internet is installed next week (getting back country point to point microwave wireless).
Peaking at around 1.5 Mbps is really bad and that is only with 4 bars. Latency seems high too, but EasyTether doesn't allow ICMP to really check. Pingtest.net gives me a line quality score of "D" and a jitter of 111ms, but I got no packet loss and a latency of only 146ms all the way from San Diego County to San Francisco. Oddly I keep getting geocoded to LA. I was used to my 25 Mbps peaks with COX cable. Only real bummer is I can't talk on the phone and browse the web at the same time!!!
Are you available for help….i am trying to tether easytether through my router and i am running into issues….thanks.
Nate
[email protected]
vpn does not work. I have the paid version and i can connect to vpn via my wifi network, but not through the easytether usb transport. With the wifi tethering available on a rooted droid i can connect to my vpn
Such a usefule blog…wow !!!!
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