Mobishark vs Tetherberry

[Kesslar]

I'm still on my quest to not pay Verizon $30 for tethering. Guess i was spoiled not having to pay T-mobile.

I'm wondering if anyone has used either Mobishark or Tetherberry. If so what did you think.

~~~MOBISHARK~~~
I used the trial of Mobishark.. it was only a 10MB trial so not alot of time, and it seemed to me to be quite a bit slower than the VZAccess connection. Enough that i don't want to pay the $50 for it. But then, i do get a slow connection with VZAccess every now and then, I have to disconnect reconnect to get the speed up again. Could have been the same issue with Mobishark, but i didn't have enough time on the trial to test it out.

~~~TETHERBERRY~~~
I haven't tried tetherberry yet.. but i think i'm going to. The catch with Tetherberry is there is not free trial. You have to pay for it up front, but you have 30 day to get your money back if not satified. I'll let you know how it goes.

So has anyone else used either program? And what did you think?

[Kesslar]

UPDATE

~~~MOBISHARK~~~
I forgot to mention that setting up Mobishark, while not brain surgery, wan't easy as it could have been. You have to go into each browser you use and change proxy setting.. had to change this and that in your phone.. had to do this for each browser you use, each messanger (MSN, Yahoo, AIM), and for each email Client you use. Kinda a pain. But it did work via Bluetooth

~~~TETHERBERRY~~~
Installation was a breeze. Download program on PC and install. Download program on Storm and install. Open both programs, hit "Default" one time on Storm and internet works great! Works with Chrome, IExplorer, MSN Messenger, Outlook Express. Didn't have to do anything at all. And if any emails/SMS/Phone calls, come threw, it disconnects long enough to get them. Not sure if i like that. If i'm playing my games i don't wanna disconnect from the game because of a SMS, or phone call. Will have to play with that. Oh, and internet is at least as fast as it was with VZAccess... much faster than with Mobishark.

Also Tetherberry only supports a USB connection as of now. (Would have known that before paying for it if i had browsed through the FAQ) Hopefully that will change soon.

I'll let you know any updates as i find them.

[stevetaz]

Thanks for the detailed reviews Kesslar. Aside from the BlueTooth issue, looks like there is already a clear winner.

Let us know how you do as the 30 day trial progresses.....

[Kesslar]

~~~UPDATE~~~

~~~TETHERBERRY~~~
After a bit of use it is clear that my tetherberry connection is noticably quicker than connecting through VZAccess.. I also contacted Customer Support to see if there was a way to have it not disconnect when a call/message comes it, and to ask about bluetooth.

I emailed CS at about 3:30 am (i work graves) and got a response later that day. So the Customer Support is fast. And answered my questions too, didn't just regurgitate some pre-written answer to pacify me.
There is currently no way to stop it from disconnecting when a call/message comes in. But said they would ask an engineer if it was something that could be added. And they are currently testing a new Bluetooth version.

So with the news of a Bluetooth version in the works i think i'm going to kill my $30 fee with verizon.

~~~Mobishark~~~
I contacted Customer Support concerned about the much slower speed of the connection using Mobishark, they too got back to me the same day.
Now my question was about the connection being much slower than connecting through VZAccess. The answer i got was:

---- MESSAGE ----
Which browser are you using? we recommend firefox or google chrome.
Please disable video,java/javascripts in browser & retry. It will make the browsing faster & will reduce,if not stop, crashing.
---- MESSAGE ----

Personally i thought this answer was pretty much worthless, seeing as how my question was about speeding it up to where i felt it should be (were it was with VZAccess), and i got a generic answer about making it faster, by limiting what i can do.. Didn't even touch why it is slower than the VZAccess connection.

So far Tetherberry is the winner by far..

[Kesslar]

You know, i'm happy to share with all what i have found out, but i'm a very self centered selfish person. I started this thread in the hope of getting info from others for me.. Is no one else out there playing with either of these? Am i weird for wanting to tether "without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons"(The Mentor, The Conscience of a Hacker aka Hacker Manafesto 1986)

[nIceMan]

Wow You sure do your homework and that's great! I appreciate all your information here. I've been thinking about purchasing tetherberry. I've been with VZ for 6 years or so. I also wanted to tether my LG phones to my laptop but VZ did stuff to disable it . I got DialUp working on my LG phone but that was just too slow. Now that I have a BB Storm and now that tetherberry is available, I am very excited to try this. Only issue is my laptop is HUGE (17" gaming laptop), whereas, my BB Storm is quite portable. The Storm's browsing and email checking are all I need and much easier to carry while on the road.

I still want to purchase tetherberry. My wife's laptop is more portable than mine, so I might connect my Storm to her laptop when on the road.

Man, it's great to have options. It's also great that I can reference back to your information and feel good I'm doing the right thing.

Thanks again!

[dgray636]

As soon as TetherBerry gets the Mac version working, I can finally save that $15 a month I am paying to Verizon. This third version of beta is more headaches than number 1. The second beta is about as close as I have gotten to having it work.

[orudiskt]

Kesslar,

Thanks for the detailed review. I was trying MobiShark on my BB Tour and found it rather slow.

After I saw your post I download Tetherberry. It seems quite a bit quicker, and is very simple to set up. I don't mind the USB too much, but look forward to Bluetooth support.

Pays for itself in under 2 months, so I'm sold.

[TexKid]

I am not totally sure if this is true or not but wasn't there a rumor that VZW could detect that you were tethering and thus stop (or charge you for) the service? If this is found to be untrue that I will definitely jump on the bandwagon.

[Kesslar]

What i was told, and i'm not sure about this either. But i think it depends on what you are doing when tethered. Surfing the net and email wont tip them off, but downloading and games uses enough bandwidth to draw their attention. But so far nothing has happened with my account. If that changes i will be sure to let you all know.