Review: Magic Jack Feedback Revisited – Updated
IMPORTANT UPDATE: The High and Mighty Oz Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal loves Magic Jack.
It kills him to admit it, but admit it he does…
To my surprise, it worked pretty much as advertised. It has a few drawbacks, and extra fees for added services, such as vanity phone numbers. But I found magicJack easy to set up and easy to use, and it yielded decent, if not pristine, call quality. I even tested customer support—a source of complaints online—and found it friendly, fast and responsive.
It’s been quite a while ago since I first installed Magic Jack. I use Magic Jack for a couple things: when the other phone line is busy, or when I need to make a long distance call to Bangalore to ask Boompa to help me undisunfigure my .dll or some other silly tech support issue.
The first Magic Jack review got hundreds of comments – running about 50/50 good/bad. I never had a bad experience with Magic Jack.I’ve been through some harrowing times with my computer. I got the Antivirus 2009 trojan virus on my computer and it took me about 36 hours (including all the downloading and restarting) to remove it.
Aside: Use Malwarebytes if you get this virus.
I have installed and uninstalled dozens of applications. My point is that every time I booted the computer, Magic Jack came back and worked like a charm.
St. Todd DeCubbville (my BATV installer) purchased one recently from Radio Shack because of the ease of returning it to the store after the trial period.
He never returned it. He is about to go without a landline entirely.
As soon as he gets Google Voice set up and distributed to everyone, he will depend solely on Magic Jack and Sprint for his phone service.
He’s convinced too.
Magic Jack is still rock solid. And I would tell you differently.
Sry for the length
Hi!
I loved your Review, and I’m glad it works for you so well
I am an IT tech, who came across your website after I googled
“Magicjack using UDP Ports 137, 138, 1900 on Windows”
I have a Magicjack, which I was unable to install on XP Pro SP3 at all. It claimed there was no driver for it…
I got it working on Vista just fine, and then on Windows 7. It worked, but was using upwards of 750MB of my system Memory, if left on for several hours. They finally released a “Upgrade” patch just after the OCT release of Windows 7 to save their butt.. hehe
Anyway, Magicjack works Flawlessly on my MAC Noteboook Pro
but MAC OS X 10.5 (leopard) or
10.6 (Snow Leopard) are actually
another type of Linux!
Like Ubuntu….
While, Linux is a totally more secure Operating System then Windows, its nowhere near as user friendly! Steve Jobs did a makeover of Linux, to act more like Windows, but until last year it still left alot to be desired as an OS to run your PC (or notebook) with, and run things like Windows does. Now MAC has created an app that runs windows apps, so people can play games, and use all the Windows toys,
on MAC..At least Bill Gates was 100% Original with his Windows invention.
Well, I was told by their site that
magicJack uses port 5060 and 5070 UDP
I have a Home Network, with 4 Computers total.
The fact that
Magicjack.exe
(the magicJack application) is responcible for all functions, I wonder why I’ve found Magicjack using
UDP Ports:
137
138
1900
as well as
5143
If you want to see what Magicjack.exe is Using on your PC, in an account with ADMIN rights
run the CMD.exe file which is in the
C:\Windows\system32
Folder
when you’ve run it,
(In Vista or Windows 7 you’ll have to right-click on CMD and left click Run as ADMIN
then the black CMD box appears. At the
C:\Windows\System32>
[arrow =prompt]
if you type
NETSTAT -A -B -O
At the prompt
you will get a rundown of every process, running on your Windows PC, that is connected to the internet.
I was shocked to find Ports
UDP Port 137
UDP Port 138
UDP port 1900
being used by the Magicjack.exe
Application. out to the internet. Yes Port 5143
is a port close to what they tell you, but
I also got the Antivirus 2009 Trojan on my computer, (as well as 4 others I know with a Magicjack)
yet as an IT Tech, I NEVER download attachments, or Zip files from Emails, and I run an MD5 sum on every application I do downlaod to make sure it matches, thiers, so I know a file is not infected. I think there is a vulnerability in the Majicjack application, which is allowing hackers to gain control of my computer, when the magicjack is plugged in,
The UDP ports 137 and 138 are used for
NETBIOS over TCP, and they are supposed to be for sharing files on a home network. They should not be connecting to the internet at all!
It seems Magicjack is up to more then targeting, and listening to calls!
I believe they are also spying on peoples computers, by accessing it via those afore mentioned UDP Ports.
Please try the test, and email me at the Appy I left, when I wrote this. I would like to know more, of what you find out!
Kind Regards,
John