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."

RDP, NX vs VNC

[FrenZon]

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.

Remote Assistance/Remote Desktop

[gad_zuki!]

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.

What is "Printing?"

[crow]

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.

Re:Remote Assistance/Remote Desktop

[CannonballHead]

In a pinch, I use crossloop, which is nothing but hamachi+VNC in a neat little package.

A lot of what people pay for are common/reachable/available tools "in a neat little package." :)

Speed is the deal-breaker

[h00manist]

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.

Re:Speed is the deal-breaker

[StuartHankins]

The only things I have used that had reasonable speed for real work were RDP, Citrix, and LTSP.

For GUI work, yes you have it nailed. But it depends on your needs I guess. Most of my work can be done via ssh, so PuTTY works great for my tasks. I use TouchTerm on my iPhone to check on things during meetings as needed... it makes quite an impression when they ask how many parts or customers we have or how much in sales over some period for some group of items and I just login and check instead of getting back to them later.

I'm not against using a GUI, but most of my work is SQL or bash scripting or shell commands or whatever, and text works just fine for that.