PC Remote control

[sleah]

Not quite a BR topic, but slightly related...

 

I've been using free Teamviewer for a few years now to access a PC at home from work. Personal use, but occasional work related such as grabbing a graphic/photo/audio file.

Just today it timed out after about 2 minutes complaining I was using it from a business network - how it knows (but didn't before) I'm not sure.

Anyway, their cheapest licence is INSANELY expensive (makes Adobe software look cheap!) otherwise I would have happily paid £50 or something for a single license.

 

To the point - does anyone use anything similar that works through corporate/personal firewalls and is free or cheap and reliable?

 

Windows RDP is an utter nightmare, I once got it to work but with every bit of security switched off on my home router (soon put it back on :o ). Even at home I can only get it to work when Windows firewall is completely disabled on my internal pcs. I tried creating exceptions but never got it to work

[DrV]

RealVNC? You will need to open up port forwarding for one port on your router so you would need to examine the security implications of that but the software itself is very robust. The free version has simple password protection but the paid for versions have more than that I believe.

 

As an aside I also use it from my Android phone to drive the Chamsys PC at my AmDram co. for focussing etc.

[henny]

Take a look at chrome Remote Desktop that’s built into the browser

[Robin D]

I prefer UltraVNC and yes it does work through firewalls. It's open source, so some would say that increases risk, others would say it makes it more secure as more people are looking to plug any holes. Same port issues as highlighted by DrV.

[sleah]

I'll take a look at Chrome RD.

 

BTW - Teamviewer now times out after about 4 minutes and blocks reconnection for another 4 minutes :(

[J Pearce]

Verging OT onto IT, but probably relevant for most of us who work away from our desks a lot.

 

Run a vpn on your home network so that you can securely dial in.

Then use RDP or VNC, without needing to leave ports and conputers open to all and sundry on the internet.

[sleah]

Take a look at chrome Remote Desktop that’s built into the browser

 

Sadly a big fat fail. Presumably because our network is closed down as tight as (insert comparison of choice).

Apart from port 443, it uses 5222(XMPP) which is probably blocked :(

[lonemorf]

Any of the VNCs (I use Tight VNC), allow you to select your listening port.......... All work nicely.

 

 

[dbuckley]

Run a vpn on your home network so that you can securely dial in.

 

This is the right answer. Then you can use RDP, which gives the best experience, or your choice of VNC, which is OK but isn't a small patch on RDP.

 

If a full VPN is too much, then the alternative is to have an SSH server on the home network exposed via the router on a non-standard port (not port 22!), a Raspberry Pi is adequate, and then one can do SSH tunnelling which also works fine for RDP and VNC.