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There is no automatic method of cancelling your account. You have to call the tech support line at https://secure.logmein.com/con... for your locale. All you can do on the site is delete the computers on your account. As of this post, I cannot get through to the US & Canada line, just getting a busy signal. Apparently I'm not the only one following this route. As has been mentioned in other posts there are plenty of free options out there capable of the same features that a free LogMeIn account was capable of doing.

I have LogMeIn Professional and use it for work. It works well - my main problem with it is that they had a security leak (or sold their user address database), as all the folks who used tagged email addresses for LogMeIn started getting spam on those tagged email addresses.

To this day, LogMeIn refuses to admit there was any leak or anything was sold or anything of the sort. This, despite quite a few tech professionals who know what they're doing seeing this spam.

I still use LogMeIn, but I trust them a hell of a lot less now. :-/

Discussions:

http://community.logmein.com/t5/Miscellaneous-Offtopic/LogMeIn-leaked-my-email-address/td-p/88548

http://krebsonsecurity.com/2012/12/logmein-docusign-investigate-breach-claims/

Ask yourself whether you need a server, or you simply need to access your home computer.

If you just need to access your home computer to see files/etc., then a service like LogMeIn or TeamViewer would probably work for you. They work through NAT and don't require a publicly routable IP address to access specific equipment.

I'm 2,500 miles and two time zones away, so I can't exactly troubleshoot things from here

Assuming the problem that needs to be troubleshot isn't network related

In no particular order of preference
TeamViewer
LogMeIn
Techinline Remote Desktop
CrossLoop (I hadn't heard of this one before searching just now but it looks interesting)
Radmin
RemotePC
There are a lot of remote support options. Some good ones are even free.

My personal suggestion is Splashtop. It isn't a remote support tool but it has client's for Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and BB 10/PlayBook OS2 so you could log into your mother's PC from your tablet and fix what needs fixing. It's also a one time cost opposed to a subscription.

At some point your mother will need to do something the tablet cannot do. You can still get an inexpensive tablet for her.

I can put something (like my tax info) on a true crypt disk on my Mac, and then email it to my mom (an accountant) who can open it on her windows PC.

You really don't have to go to the extreme of mailing your Mac. Just have her use logmein for instance.

Everything you want to do I do at home on my "not real" internet connection.

You just have to take your Meds for your ADD and use ports that are not blocked, and use a dyndns service.

I do VPN back to home, I run a SFTP, I run a webserver on Port 81 and Port 82.

I'm really not sure what ADD and medication have to do with anything...

Like I indicated in my post: And any time I run RDP on a different port it'll wind up blocked again after two or three connections.

It isn't just that 3389 is blocked... If I run RDP on 3390 or 3391 or 3392 those ports will be blocked after one or two incoming connections. I've run a web server on alternative ports as well - 8080, and 8088 for example (so that I could remotely manage my router) and they got blocked after a couple connections.

I suppose, if I really wanted to, I could automate the whole thing... Throw together a script of some sort to randomly select a new port for every connection attempt or something... But that seems like an awful lot of work for very little reward.

I've started using LogMeIn for remote access to my home computer, which gets around these blocks on incoming connections by opening an outgoing connection to their central server.

https://secure.logmein.com/products/hamachi2/ !

Question. Would Hamachi work too?

I am thinking the only thing that might make it worth the asking price is if there is a VNC type of app for it

You mean like this one? (Look for an iPad-resolution version in about 5 seconds)

Or perhaps this one? It even has a FREE (as in beer) version.

Or perhaps this thing?

Now, since I found these in about 30 seconds, what's your next fake objection?

Or I don't tell mom jack and shit, because I already installed a nice free little program called logmein so I didn't have to deal with explaining jack. Jeez you Linux guys go to such lengths to explain your ePeen BS. Do you HONESTLY think it would be easier to explain how to do crap like pipe grep and sudo terminal shit to an illiterate user? Really? Because I got some nice swampland in Florida to sell you.

You know what the REAL outcome of your mythical mother situation would be Mom would misspell something, and because terminal is...well just a dumb terminal that everyone used back in the days that computers were unfriendly and sucked for the average Joe, which frankly Linux users would LOVE to go back to which is why you have jokes like "Black September" when the unwashed was actually allowed to play in your sandbox, well mom and her little transposing or misspelling would totally bork the living hell out of the machine, probably beyond booting, so you better be hoping you have mom a damned good battery on her phone or be prepared to drive to mom's house.

Look, just accept the facts-Linux guys are IT heavy geeks that LIKE all the CLI user unfriendly bullshit. You like it, you want it, you do NOT want to go to a mainly GUI system, and THAT is why Linux is a PITA for "normal" Joes. I swear you Linux guys are as fricking bad as the Apple fanboys that will sit there and argue with you until the cows come home that a $4000 Mac Pro is a "good value" when we all know that Apple is like Ferrari-sleek, sexy, and expensive as hell. Jeez, just lose the RDF and smell the reality for a moment. There is a REASON why retail chains like Walmart tried and then dumped your OS-It is because it is a fricking nightmare from hell to shop for and support, and you LIKE IT THAT WAY!

So PLEASE stop pretending that it is "fear of the unknown" that "forces" folks to use Windows, and if they would just "embrace CLI" all would be beautiful. NEWS FLASH....They do NOT WANT your CLI shit, okay? The average Joe don't want to play your little reindeer games, or spend hours trawling forums to shop, or read badly written man pages, or apply "fixes" that consist of 6 pages of CLI gibberish, okay? Is that REALLY so hard to understand? The customer wants their experience to be A, you want to force their experience to be B, since MSFT and Apple offer A they do what anyone in a free market would do and go where they can buy A. Offering B for free don't mean shit if the customer wants A, okay? It really isn't that hard to grasp. Make a Linux OS with NO CLI, and work with manufacturers (most likely by creating a stable ABI so they can put drivers on CDs) so that the customer has an easy way to shop. Do this and Linux will sell. Try to force the entire world to do things YOUR way? Well I will return in 2015 to see "Next year is the year of the Linux desktop!" while the world laughs and uses Windows 12 and OSXI.

Here, I looked online and found a video, will be much quicker then trying to write directions.

https://secure.logmein.com/US/welcome/donein60/tech-provisioning.aspx

Here is the press release.

https://secure.logmein.com/about/newsroom/newsannouncements.aspx?Article=160

And yes it works with free version too.

Here, I looked online and found a video, will be much quicker then trying to write directions.

https://secure.logmein.com/US/welcome/donein60/tech-provisioning.aspx

Here is the press release.

https://secure.logmein.com/about/newsroom/newsannouncements.aspx?Article=160

And yes it works with free version too.

Yes I use it every day and have at least 200 computers on it, I use it to support my IT Management firms clients.

I did some research because I'm willing to be proven wrong and I figured out deployment links is part of LogMeIn Central, an add-on product I purchased when they got rid of groups for the free product. (keeping clients separated was a nightmare after that) It's not free but nowhere near the cost of LogMeIn Rescue, and cheap enough it may be worth it to some people.

https://secure.logmein.com/US/products/central/

Okay seems like everyone and their brother has a different idea and since this interests me I tried to roll up as many of the interesting looking ones as possible into one posting :-) Did I miss any?

http://www.teamviewer.com/

https://secure.logmein.com/products/free/

http://www.copilot.com/

http://skype.com/

http://www.uvnc.com/addons/singleclick.html (reverse VNC)

http://www.crossloop.com/

http://www.mikogo.com/en/

http://showmypc.com/

https://www.ntrconnect.com/

http://www.zolved.com/remote_control

http://www.wippien.com/ (VPN)

http://code.google.com/p/gitso/ (reverse VNC)

It's a free service for home use. QED.

It works well, too, but can be a bit slow. Also like most VNCs there is no audio support but for remote troubleshooting it should be fine. Give it a go. Find it here

I had to check out my mom's PC this weekend after the vague complaint that it was "messing up" "crashing" and "she was irritated." Turned out what was crashing was Firefox because she had about 30 tabs opened! Every time she wanted to go to something or back to something she's click on a link and open another tab. She has the same problem with Eudora (I'm thinking of moving her over to Thunderbird and making everything open in a new WINDOW because she can't seem to get the concept of one window, several tabs and that there is a limit.

My other pet peeve is when you get someone who not only "gets" that they're viruses out there, they're paranoid and every time something happens to their computer, they think it's a virus or a hacker attack. (This was not a person going to risky sites either.)

I've got to give a shout out to LogMeIn which offers a FREE, secure way to connect up to another computer and is especially helpful for the Mom or BFF computer that you have to keep tech supporting. I can log in and install updates or take a look at what's going on instead of having to deal with a vague description that is NEVER correct. About the only thing the free version doesn't do is allow you to transfer files directly from your computer to theirs, but that's easy enough to get around. It's been a godsend.

NTRconnect works on Linux, and the LogMeIn client will work on Linux with the right plugin:

http://community.logmein.com/logmein/board/message?board.id=29&message.id=21

TeamViewer is especially handy for granny tech support, but unfortunately it's for Windows and Mac OS only.

http://www.teamviewer.com/

I'd just use VNC, works on anything :)

Your lack of knowledge about windows doesnt make windows bad
For example he could use restore points.
He could set folder permission, to protect against destruction.
Or just some simple backup program like Paragon, and a boot CD.
He might also lock down XP, there are excellent reads about how to do that.
YOu might get a start here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457006.aspx
So you could write your own policies, and only allow for certain programs to execute.
Windows is a verry open aplication environment, so how about helping your parents remotely
I help my parents sometimes using http://www.logmein.com/ when i cannot be there.

Oh and yes my parents use vista, so there is verry little change they will get mallware installed.

Altough i believe microsoft could still improve their OS.
It is still a best choice for older people, due too its interface standards.

https://secure.logmein.com

I had RadMin Before, but LogMeIn beats everything.

LogMeIn.

Hands down the best zero-config remote access software ever. Works through all sorts of NAT and firewalls, is free as in beer, and very easy to use.

So, I figured, just fire up remote desktop and away I go. Wrong. She is using Home Edition which as I said before doesn't have this capability.

It's worth pointing out that, even if she were running XP Pro, you would have had to log in locally to the machine to enable RDP in the first place. Granted, you can do it through Remote Registry management, but I honestly don't know if that would have been OOB enabled anyway.

If you really want to remote manage machines though, try LogMeIn. It kicks copious amounts of ass, is free, and is a turn-key solution that works with zero configuration.

A secure VPN or proxy is a very useful tool if you find yourself using insecure wifi often. Windows XP Pro (and better) offer VPN serving capabilities for at least one user. Alternatively, you could set up a free web proxy on localhost and use Hamachi or OpenSSH for port forwarding. In any case, it's definitely worth the peace of mind knowing that your traffic is at least somewhat obfuscated.

On a side note, I like how you wiki-signed your post :)

The problem with offline folders is that they only work well for one user on that laptop, especially if it's the home share that's being offlined here.

But let's get back on topic. If it's not a really a chronological backup that's needed, then maybe https://www.foldershare.com/ could be a possible solution to the problem.

It synchronizes user-specifyable folders amongst multiple machines in a real-time fashion, so this might work well if those roadwarriors also have a desktop in the office they could synchronize to. Foldershare is also free as in beer.

Another solution could be http://www.logmein.com/ which is not free, but has many useful modules, backup being one of them. They also offer really good remote access solutions, which might be a selling point for some of the IT managers.

Aside from the smart card, that's no different than what LogMeIn offers. At least from what I can tell.

Yes, I do it all the time -- https://secure.logmein.com/welcome/get_logmein_fre e/signup.asp

some have gone even further than that. the halls i was in last year only had acces to a few of the commonly used ports to the outside world, however i had over 6TB of mapped network drives containing illegal video\audio and games(including Oblivion before lunchtime of the day it came out) all accessable at 100Mb\s so they have a different kind of file sharing problem (on average 500GB would be uploaded from my machine in a week)the blocking of ports meant that i used http://logmein.com/ to start torrents on my home computer and then download them via a ftp the message was there but the damage was restricted to internal transfer which was supposedly traced though my activity never seemed to attract attention so yes they do try to stop file sharing with the outside world but don't seem to do much about internal sharing

I have family in 3 different states and 3 different countries. I feel your pain. www.logmein.com Okay, so it's not VPN, but it's a verynice little remote access program. It allows remote access via web browser. The basic version is free. If you want to pay $60 a year for the pro version, it allows you to transfer files.

I just installed it on my families computers, so when they need tech support, I can have them open logmein, and I can just fix their computers remotely instead of talking them through itstep by step. It also allows me to install anti-virus, anti-spy, firefox, etc... We also had a nice long chat about disabling the service unless I specifically call them.

For free file transfers, we use gmail for under 10 MB and you could use Gdrive for anything over that. It's a bit of a hack, but it works. It's not like we're transferring huge DIVX files to each other.

Although cool and nifty, who is really going to want a remote desktop which governments can potentially access at their free will? Especially nowadays with lax wiretap laws and the like.

Convenience is a very important factor these days. At my job we set up VPNs and VNC/RDP sessions left and right - because people want the convenience of being able to access their computer/work/data/programs from wherever they're at. Services like Log Me In and Go To My PC are insanely popular.

If you told the average user that they could use their computer from anywhere in the world through a web browser... That all their programs/documents/settings/whatever would all be there... That it would be just like sitting down at your PC at home/work, but from absolutely anywhere with Internet access... Most of them would leap at the opportunity, and privacy be damned.

Have a look at LogMeIn which allows you to log in to your desktop PC remotely. If nothing else, it's a great way of having a fully featured web browser running on your PDA!

One thing that I just discovered is that it turns out that LogMeIn.com is owned by 3am Labs who also owns Remotely Anywhere, so they are using the same technology. The free version of Logmein.com provides simple, secure remote connectivity to one host. The "pro" version (which costs a monthly fee) allows full remote control of one host as well as other nice features such as full file transfer capabilities, remote printing, and other features. You can add additional hosts for a reduced fee.

My advice is that if you re-assign the hosted PC frequently, or if you don't need the file transfer or remote printing capabilities, or have a dynamic IP address, then you may want to use the free version of LogMeIn.com, but if you use a dynamic DNS service (such as MyServer.org) and want to manage things yourself, then consider investing in Remotely Anywhere. Unless you are expensing it or can afford it, I don't think I can recommend the fee-based service because the full Remotely Anywhere package will cost you less within a year.

One thing that I just discovered is that it turns out that LogMeIn.com is owned by 3am Labs who also owns Remotely Anywhere, so they are using the same technology. The free version of Logmein.com provides simple, secure remote connectivity to one host. The "pro" version (which costs a monthly fee) allows full remote control of one host as well as other nice features such as full file transfer capabilities, remote printing, and other features. You can add additional hosts for a reduced fee.

My advice is that if you re-assign the hosted PC frequently, or if you don't need the file transfer or remote printing capabilities, or have a dynamic IP address, then you may want to use the free version of LogMeIn.com, but if you use a dynamic DNS service (such as MyServer.org) and want to manage things yourself, then consider investing in Remotely Anywhere. Unless you are expensing it or can afford it, I don't think I can recommend the fee-based service because the full Remotely Anywhere package will cost you less within a year.