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Free Remote Access Tools For Windows and Mac Compared
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Keith Schultz provides an in-depth comparison of seven free remote access tools for Windows, four of which offer compatibility with the Mac. 'As you read about each tool, you'll notice that I put a lot of emphasis on remote printing. I rely on remote access tools on a daily basis, and in most cases I need to be able to print to my remote PC. For someone that just wants to check their home/office email account or view documents from outside the office, all of the utilities here will work fine. But for those trying to get some serious work done, remote printing may be the deal breaker.' Many of the free tools under review offer paid or licensed versions for access to additional features."
Many of the free tools listed here also have paid versions that offer additional features (such as support for remote printing) or licensing (extra host computers or clients). For some users, the paid version will be the only true option.
You mean print from your remote PC to your local printer, right?
And what about device recognition? Drag/Drop capability? Touch panel integration? USB/DVD device detection?
I use remote desktop software on a daily basis as well, and these issues vex me.
You shouldn't need any extra software to print remotely in OS X. Just cat a postscript file over SSH and into lpr on the remote machine.
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i used to tell my mom who lives 2000 miles away "i don't know" or "I need to be there"
now i can have desktop access to her laptop over the internet. and for free
I'd be interested to know how good these are at actually doing UI updates - I'm assuming they're all similar in implementation to VNC, which is a shame as you cannot really compare VNC-based systems to the speed of more integrated solutions like RDP and NX.
It's free, fully free until you go over 5 lic.
I tried to pay them, and they wouldn't take my $. Great for Friends / family support, and lic costs are pretty reasonable.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
but showmypc is a pretty convenient remote help tool. As a plus its easy enough to walk a user through finding and installing. My only problem with it is personal. One time I was telling a female customer who called in to go to "show my pc dot com" but she didn't hear me clearly and took a great deal of offense at the website name I had just given her. Now I feel dirty every time I do remote work.
They're not free, but you already paid for them when you bought the OS. Granted, you'll need to set up the firewall rule beforehand, but they do everything you need. Control UAC, print, fast over slow connections, etc.
In a pinch, I use crossloop, which is nothing but hamachi+VNC in a neat little package.
Honestly, what I would really love to see would be something like SSH X forwarding to run a single remote app from a Mac or WIndows machine. I have a MacBook, it has a 13 inch screen. My Linux desktop at home has a much larger screen. I wish I could just forward individual Cocoa apps the same way you can run remote X apps over SSH and run them on the larger screen without having to hook the monitor, a keyboard and mouse to the Mac.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
The chart on the first page has a useless column -- he groups the host and client support together when these should be two separate columns. For instance, Microsoft's RDC says "Windows and Mac", when in reality the host is Windows only and the client runs on Windows and Mac. Not being too familiar with the other options, I'm sure there are other combinations like this that will be deal breakers for others out there.
Forget about the "free" tools in the article and get Tunnelier [http://www.bitvise.com/tunnelier]
I highly recommend using UltraVNC-SC. You configure it for your needs as a support person. The person you support has to run a small single EXE file, and you then have control over their machine. Quick and efficient access to someone's desktop to see what they see has made a vast improvement in my ability to support people for the past 5 years or so.
I didn't know that printing was the bar for whether you're doing serious work. What, is he another shill for the paper industry?
They talk about RDP for Mac, but they are only talking about the client. There is a
beta version of Mac Remote Desktop that allows an RDP client to connect to a Mac.
It is called Mac Remote Desktop (surprised?) There is some information about it at http://www.aquaconnect.net/mac-remote-desktop.php
Aqua Connect also has a version for Mac Server, called Aqua Connect Terminal Server. More information is at http://www.aquaconnect.net/
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I have a free, open source remote desktop system for Windows XP and above. It is written in C++ using MFC and the MDI interface. It supports multiple sessions and the client supports multiple server connections. It is stable but light on the features. It is my hobby project. It would be great if some other coders could help me flesh out the features. If any windows programmer is interested, you can find the source code and executables on codeproject. Here is the link http://www.codeproject.com/KB/IP/remotecontrol.aspx
Isn't printing something people did back in the 80s? Why would anyone want to do that now? Even in a corporate environment, I only need to actually print something about once a month.
I need a little encryption so I tunnel tightVNC or RDP through ssh. I find VNC to be a tad glitchy, especially drawing GTK windows, but it has a convenient full screen refresh function that overcomes that. RDP has the advantage of connecting the remote pc to local printers.
"Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
This article seems to be missing some of the most common, well-known remote access tools for Windows:
These are just a few of the very common tools used to remotely access Windows systems every day!
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
His evaluation of all of these products is incredibly insightful. "Firewall friendly"? He means: "Can it get around firewalls without changing their settings properly?" Never mind the security issue of opening your desktop / server / whatever to a third party using something like LogMeIn.Thanks, Keith!
= LogMeIn + Dropbox. What else? Weave on Firefox. That's it.
The review states that VNC isn't firewall friendly but, apparently, the reviewer isn't aware of the single click versions of VNC. These versions run without any changes to the host firewall since the connection is initiated by the host. The single click version of UltraVNC is available at:
http://www.uvnc.com/addons/singleclick.html
GBridge was listed as excellent, but if you work at a company that has a proxy server, you are out of luck. GBridge entries in the forum have been saying "we're working on it" since July of 2008.
I use a combination of copSSH, an excellent OpenSSH package for Windows, port forwarding and good old RDP (Because I don't really like the idea of publishing my RDP connection out on t'internet when I can use Public Key auth with SSH). Plus using SSH gives me SCP for file transfers, which is usually a bit faster than doing it via redirected drives in Windows.
The Windows 7/2008 R2 version of Remote Desktop (v7) has full support for multiple monitors (finally), Aero and for streaming audio and video via WMP so watching stuff is less of a slideshow (though still not really great with your average home broadband upload speeds) as well as local resource mapping (printers, drives, smartcards, etc).
For those Mac users connecting to another Mac there is always the "Screen Sharing" app located at /System/Library/CoreServices/. It's already there. It's free.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
I have used and tested multiple remote software, some commercial licensed stuff as well. I find that first, it depends on what you are using it for. If you are a remote worker and want to use programs at work from home, or vice versa, the minor trouble of editing ACL's to allow RDP (don't forget to change the port to avoid scans) is worth it. On the other hand, if you are constantly dealing with multiple people behind firewalls, something like show my pc or logmein free is more than likely what you want. I particularly like RDP for a couple reasons, one being that its built in and requires no additional installation on any professional version of windows. RDP for graphical remote on windows, GUI over SSH for *nix.
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
There really is no contest when it comes to remote access for windows. RDP is the most bandwidth effecient performant and feature rich client of the age-old citrix fame. Integrated session encryption keyed to your login credentials is HUGE for vista/2008.. Something that was not even mentioned. How do you review remote access technology and not comment about security?
On the unix side SSH and family rocks of course. VNC is good for GUI but still does not hold a candle to RDP in terms of a performant solution.
I'd love to do remote desktop viewing for distributed, Linux-based, artistic productions. For HP machines their proprietary Remote Graphics Software is very nice, and fills the bill perfectly, but it does require you to use HP boxes (at least for the server, if not necessarily the viewer). Are there any other open-source or widely-available proprietary desktop sharing systems for Linux?
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
...since very few people over here own Macs.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
For any other system to provide something as elegant and convenient as Plan 9's cpu(1) command.
"When in doubt, use brute force." Ken Thompson
Their RDP "download" link goes here to a 3 year old version of the RDP client for XP. Given the massive improvements between v5.1 and the current version in Windows 7 (v7) it makes me wonder about the validity of their testing if they really used that version and the validity of their writers if they didn't.
I'm sure there's varying degrees to this, as everything else and everyone's needs are different, but as time marches on I've been finding my need to print things has become less and less urgent. Am I alone?
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
On a related note, is there anything to enable low-level remote access? Something like Dell DRAC, so that you can actually change BIOS settings and the like? Sometimes I need to reboot Windows remotely, which isn't the default OS, and I can't access the boot manager configuration from Windows. I imagine something like that would be difficult to implement in software, and obviously a software solution would be impossible to use if the machine is off, so I don't really care if it's third-party hardware as long as I don't have to buy a Dell server.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
My parents live 2000 miles away. If there's something wrong I just say "Buddies | Ask to Share Remote Screen" and walla, everything works. Best part? My parents already run iChat.
While not perfect for every case, it's perfect when you're the family IT guy.
Blatantly hijacking Micropenis FP to get this point in:
The review of VNC says that it is not firewall friendly, and that the network admin has to open a port and point it at the machine in question. While this is true of VNC in general, they specifically mention UltraVNC which has a nifty proxy feature. I use this very successfully on some of the networks I admin.
Basically, you run the proxy server on one machine that has the port forwarded to it from the firwall. Then, your UVNC clients enter the *local* IP or hostname of the machine they want to get to, and there's an extra field for the proxy's address, which is the real-world IP or hostname that you'd use to contact the proxy.
It works very well, is free/open source, provides access to whole networks behind a firewall without the need for individual configurations to the firewall on every incoming connection and allows for some very efficient connection compression giving usable speeds even over slow connections.
That the article doesn't mention it is pretty poor form, given that IMHO its the best all-round solution to this problem.
I hate printers.
Microsoft recently "released" Mesh. It is IE only though (and the reason I will probably stick with LogMeIn).
Wanted: witty unique signature. Must be willing to relocate.
I've been using TV for a while now. While I don't particularly enjoy "Family Tech Support Guru", this tool has made my job MUCH easier.
The previous tool I used was WebConference.com. While WC.C worked for most of my clients, it didn't always. Plus, for somebody who isn't very computer literate, the install is scary as fuck.
Now all I need my mom to do is start up the program, give me her ID number (in case I don't feel like looking it up and since I don't want to install it to be persistently connected) and boom. A minute later I'm on her machine. Fixin' her stuff.
Now my uncle, whose machine is just a never-ending nightmare...
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The only things I have used that had reasonable speed for real work were RDP, Citrix, and LTSP. I used vnc, tightvnc and ultravnc many times, but never found it to be usable for day-to-day stuff.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Does just about everything I need. I did stand up an OpenVPN-AS for the rest of the herd - they seem to like it.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
I had been using gbridge for tech support for a while, it is already amazing when used to remote access all my machines. But it really shines when used in group level, where I can integrate it with google apps account and provides tech support securely.
Rather than forward all sorts of ports to different hosts behind a firewall you just need an ssh server that can connect to those hosts and all connections to that (properly secured) ssh server.
On the client you do something like putty -D 1080 username@host. This creates a SOCKS 5 proxy on the client that can connect to anything the ssh server you've connected to can see. On Linux and (maybe) OS X, you use run your remote client through proxychains or tsocks eg.
proxychains rdesktop internal_ip
proxychains ssvncviewer -bgr233 -encodings tight other_internal_ip
Bandwidth allowing, you can connect to as many remote clients as you like at the same time. Seems "firewall friendly" to me.This is sometimes called "socksification". You can also use "localhost" in software like browsers that can be set to use SOCKS.
Windows users don't have quite as easy a time socksifying appsthough you can try FreeCap or SocksCap. I don't have to do much in the way of remote printing though I suppose print clients could be tunneled that way as well.
Windows Home Basic versions don't have RDP enabled. In order to get it you need to upgrade to Home Premium for the low price of 79 dollars.
That is why I always had backorifice installed on most boxes I had to deal with, because when the remote software failed I had a backup ;-)
FragHARD or don't frag at all
I'd love to do remote desktop viewing for distributed, Linux-based, artistic productions. For HP machines their proprietary Remote Graphics Software is very nice, and fills the bill perfectly, but it does require you to use HP boxes (at least for the server, if not necessarily the viewer). Are there any other open-source or widely-available proprietary desktop sharing systems for Linux?
Yes. There's freenx server for the Linux box and the cross-platform no-machine client for the viewer. It works over SSH by default. IMHO it works much better than any of the VNCs.
Why do people want to get non-free version?
What lot of faff for a simple task.
What happened, did you bring Hemos back or something? He was always the worst for this kind of nonsense.