GoTo Resolve endpoint protection review

GoTo have actually been around for over 20 years but may be more familiar to internet users under their previous name of LogMeIn Inc.

The company has two flagship products, one of which is named 'Go To Resolve' (formerly known as GoTo Assist), which is designed for IT Managers. The platform is designed for endpoint management and GoTo claims 'advanced' troubleshooting and security features. 

Does the platform live up to its developers' claims as one of the best endpoint protection software platforms? Or should GoTo be rebranded 'NoGoTo'?

GoTo Resolve: Plans and pricing

First the good news - GoTo Resolve has a free tier. This supports up to 3 agents and up to 5 'Pro' devices (more on this later), so is perfect for small businesses. This plan also includes  device monitoring, quick view,  remote access/execution and Antivirus Management.

Before going further, we should stress that GoTo Resolve draws a distinction between 'Pro' and 'Lite' managed devices. Only devices in 'Pro' status offer the full remote control and management experience, while 'Lite' devices offer basic remote access features. Your subscription plan defines the number of Pro devices you can have but you can have any number of 'Lite' devices no matter which plan you choose.

The first paid tier is GoTo Resolve 'Standard'. Prices start at $57 per month if billed annually for one agent and up to 25 'Pro' devices, plus all the perks in the 'free' tier. Subscribers also benefit from being able to manage Windows & application updates, automation scheduling and a dedicated onboarding manager.

The pricing page also lists various add-ons which you can purchase to extend GoTo Resolve's functionality, including additional agents and mobile device support. 'Endpoint Protection' is also listed as an add-on but we were unable to find a way to find the price for this or enable it (see below).

Pricing for the 'Premium' tier (which forms the basis for this review) starts at $217 per month if billed annually. This plan supports up to 3 Agents and up to 100 'Pro' devices and includes all the benefits of the 'free' and 'standard' plans. 

Interested parties can register for a free 14-day trial without providing any payment information. 

GoTo Resolve: Features

Of all the endpoint management platforms we've reviewed, GoTo certainly have the most comprehensive features page. These show the platform seems to have aspects of a helpdesk/collaboration tool as well as endpoint management.

For example, GoTo Resolve supports creating, resolving and closing support tickets via Microsoft Teams. Agents can also provide support for Android and iOS devices, as well as collaborate on issues. 

GoTo Resolve's "Admin Console" also supports creating multiple users and groups with SSO/2FA. 

As mentioned, there are also automation features which allow managers to push scripts to handle tasks in the background. During our tests (see below) we were especially impressed by the ability to open and run console commands on endpoints, allowing agents to carry out tasks in the background while endpoint users carry on with their work.

The 'Unattended Access' feature is also useful for when endpoint users aren't around, as it allows managers to deploy updates, fix issues and assign devices, even when there's no end user present. 

The platform also follows a "Zero Trust" access model. New users must create a special key on registration with the understanding that not even GoTo can recover data protected by it, if it's lost for any reason.  

GoTo Resolve: Setup

Registration for the 14-day free trial of GoTo Resolve is just a matter of providing your name, company information and email address. The website next prompts you to choose your managed storing i.e data hosting location from either 'Global' or 'European Union'. We assume this is in order to be compliant with GDPR.

On first login to the GoTo Resolve Admin Console the website plays a helpful introductory video, which walks users through the steps of adding your first device and managing alerts. 

Users are then prompted to add their first device by creating their own 'signature key' (minimum 8 characters). This is part of GoTo Resolve's Zero Trust access and as such, the website warns that GoTo cannot reset it for you. By default this key is required each time you carry out a 'sensitive action' on endpoint devices. The platform next prompts you to generate and download a recovery file, which allows you to reset the signature key on your own if you forget it. 

You can then download the installer for your endpoints : clients are available for Windows, macOS and Android. We were absolutely astonished how quickly the agent installed onto our test machine, taking less than 3 seconds to deploy after being launched. This is by far the fastest agent setup time we've ever clocked for an endpoint management platform.

For security reasons, users must then click to 'Verify' the endpoint device in the admin console. 

GoTo Resolve: Interface

Aside from a very fast setup time the GoTo Resolve endpoint agent is unremarkable. There's no dedicated window and the menu options only allow you to view more information about the app, save store login credentials or remove the program altogether.

The admin console on the other hand is much more forthcoming. Being used to cloud consoles which overwhelm users with data written in miniscule fonts, we were very pleased to see GoTo Resolve is well laid out and uses a larger typeface.

The left hand pane contains the main sections, along with easy to follow sub-menus. For instance the 'Devices' overview lists both 'Pro' and 'Lite' devices along with their status. Clicking further into each one allows you to view detailed information like CPU usage and running processes.

We've already touched on the ability to launch the console remotely from an endpoint, which can easily be accessed from simple buttons at the top of each screen. From here, you can also open the endpoint's file manager or start a remote support session. 

GoTo Resolve: Performance

As we mentioned earlier, the standard tiers for GoTo Resolve support Antivirus Management, in that they can monitor an existing antivirus solution but we were unable to install the 'endpoint protection' add-on for our free trial. This made it difficult for us to run our standard tests to check how the platform would detect and respond to threats. 

However, we were able to discover from the company's blog that the endpoint protection add-on is powered by Bitdefender. This means it offers advanced security features like real-time scanning based on an advanced threat database. 

As we were unable to test this feature fully, we instead chose to install the free version of Bitdefender onto our test machine, to see how GoTo Resolve managed tasks like updates, scans and alerts via the antivirus manager. 

Once install was complete, the admin console immediately displayed that this was our test machine's antivirus of choice and we were able to remotely trigger an update. Our attempts to run 'quick' and 'full' scans remotely were less successful though, as despite trying several times they failed to begin.

Our first test was to attempt to download a fake computer virus to our test machine, provided by the good people of EICAR. We were able to access the website in Microsoft Edge and began to download the file in compressed (ZIP) format, only for it to be automatically 'disinfected' by Bitdefender.

Our next test was to try to copy a new, real computer virus we'd caught in the wild into the test machine's 'Downloads' folder. We do this to check if the anti-malware features are just comparing suspicious files against a database of known signatures or if it can detect threats based on a program's behavior. Sure enough the file was immediately quarantined.

On logging in to GoTo Resolve's Admin Console, we did see a notification about one threat being detected but couldn't find any further information. When we requested a scan report from the 'Endpoint Protection' section, we repeatedly saw the message that a scan hadn't been run. 

GoTo Resolve: Final verdict

As readers have seen, we had mixed success with GoTo Resolve's Antivirus Management feature. It's entirely possible that had the Bitfender-based 'endpoint protection' been included with our free trial then the platform would not only have quarantined the threats but sent a detailed report back to the cloud console, which is what we'd expect to see from a endpoint security platform. Indeed, when we took Bitdefender's own GravityZone Business Security Premium for a test drive the platform immediately generated alerts to show threats had been detected and quarantined.

Still, it's entirely possible to set up your own antivirus solution and manage it via GoTo Resolve. It's also very hard to criticize the company for this extra work, given that you can actually do this for up to 5 devices without paying a penny.

The extra features such as remote control of devices, being able to work in the background and unattended deployment are also extremely impressive. We're particularly happy that the platform supports both Windows, macOS and mobile devices. 

Many platforms also don't make their pricing models clear, so we were very pleased to see that GoTo have provided detailed information for smaller businesses and also encourage larger organizations to get in touch. 

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