Control a Remote Computer–For Free
You’re all set up in your hotel room to review the presentation you’ll be giving tomorrow, but when you go looking for the slides you created, you realize the file is back on your office computer. Or, maybe you simply need to take control of a computer back at the office to demonstrate a task to a person there. These kinds of situations are why it makes sense to travel with a good remote control software application. The good news is that whether you’re a Windows or a Mac user, you can do so for free.
Remote control software used to be too much of a hassle to set up for most people, but some of the best free applications no longer require any significant setup at all, because they’re browser-based. In this post, I’ll go through good, free–as well as some inexpensively priced–remote control applications for Windows and the Mac.
Whether you are a Windows or Mac user, LogMeIn Free is one of the very best remote control software applications. I use it regularly, and never have any problems. It costs absolutely nothing and you can easily specify multiple remote computers to connect to. Mac users can try LogMeIn Free for Mac, although do note that it is a preview application.
You can get all set up to use LogMeIn Free in under two minutes. You just specify an e-mail address and a password, then respond to an “Add Computer” prompt to add systems that you want to remotely connect to. When you’re traveling, all you have to do is login at LogMeIn’s home page and the remote computers that you specified upon setup are immediately available to you. If you’ve never used a remote conrol application before, you can literally control the remote computer as though you were sitting in front of it, moving files from it to your local hard drive, etc.
What if you’re a Mac user and you want to control a remote Windows PC? Microsoft has a beta version of its Remote Desktop Connection software and it’s a completely free download.
If you become a fan of remote control software and want to branch out into a few more advanced features, look into GoToMyPC and WebEx PCNow. Mac users who want extra features such as the ability to set Adminstrator rights for remote access should look into Apple Remote Desktop or Timbuktu Pro.
Do you have any good tips on remote control applications?
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Have you checked out RealVNC? or TightVNC?? Both support Mac, Windows and Linux. I use RealVNC to help one of my Mac clients from a Windows box and it works very well.
Both applications are free, and install very easily.
VNC is a little more work to set-up through a firewall perhaps, but it’s platform-independent and pretty standard across versions available from many sources.
If you’re not scared of learning some command line magic, SSH is a great tool for remote access of all kinds. It can transfer files via SFTP and access remote X Windows applications natively. It can also be used to securely tunnel notoriously insecure remote desktop protocols like VNC.
While SSH is easy to use on Mac OSX or Linux, Windows users will have a hard time finding a good version to install and feel comfortable with.
I am a huge fan of SSH if all I need is terminal access, but I don’t get GUI apps on any non *NIX platform.
I believe it is possible to tunnel VNC over SSH. This is integrated into the *NIX version of TightVNC but not Mac or Windows. Setting it up on other platforms isn’t for the faint of heart.
I’ve been a Logmein fan for qutie some time, until I discovered ShowMyPC. It’s for Windows only, but totally free and open source
This is the working URl for ShowMyPC, I believe:
http://showmypc.com/
For accessing linux machines, NX beats VNC hands down – is well worth a look at: http://www.nomachine.com/
Server part is Linux & Solaris, client part available for Windows, Linux, Solaris & Mac.
Oh, and it has a VNC and Windows RDP bridge, so if you have an accessible linux box at the remote end, you can use it to access other machine via NX as well.
Crossloop is a free great tool for remote assistance.
I’ve been using http://www.orb.com for some time and it’s excellent as well as free. Aside from file access, you can also play your music remotely and perform “Slingbox” equivalent functions using their “Mycasting” facility.
Actually i’m customer of LogmeIn Rescue. it’s fantastic. Normally we visit with car to customers. Now it’s very easy. And cheap. The most fantastic option is that we can support from any computer with browser in anyplace. And the customer can install software from webpage and no need change router config. Well , we paid, but the revenues are impressive.
No more combustible, diets, highway, etc. A lot of hours of work. Think that we are a small company and the time it’s very precious.
Could be strange, but i write from Spain.
Sorry my bad english.