PEBKAC. For real.
January 25, 2010 6:16 AM Subscribe
Looking at remote access apps for our IT company. Would love to hear your suggestions.
Familiar with LogMeIn Rescue, not gung-ho about the price. Found CrossLoop a couple weeks ago, and now they have pro...at $5/month per technician, that seems pretty awesome. Googling around also gave us "SimpleHelp", but we've never heard of it so we're wary.
What I need is firewall independent screen sharing w/ the ability to transfer files. Exactly like LogMeIn Rescue but ideally not $1200 a year.
Options are great, your experiences are great---lemme have it.
Familiar with LogMeIn Rescue, not gung-ho about the price. Found CrossLoop a couple weeks ago, and now they have pro...at $5/month per technician, that seems pretty awesome. Googling around also gave us "SimpleHelp", but we've never heard of it so we're wary.
What I need is firewall independent screen sharing w/ the ability to transfer files. Exactly like LogMeIn Rescue but ideally not $1200 a year.
Options are great, your experiences are great---lemme have it.
Best answer: Teamviewer has firewall, NAT, and OS independence wired. I've only used the free version for supporting family, but it works well and is easy for them to get it going on their end. Commercial use licensing looks like a one-time fee.
posted by TruncatedTiller at 6:56 AM on January 25, 2010
posted by TruncatedTiller at 6:56 AM on January 25, 2010
I second Teamviewer. Have used Crossloop and Gotomypc but Teamviewer wins because of the ease of setup, no need for administrator acoounts and refresh speed of screenshare.
posted by london302 at 7:38 AM on January 25, 2010
posted by london302 at 7:38 AM on January 25, 2010
TeamViewer can be expensive depending on how many connections you need. I think we have 5 'channels' and the yearly fee was a bit surprising.
posted by barake at 7:38 AM on January 25, 2010
posted by barake at 7:38 AM on January 25, 2010
>If I need to access the incoming connection it from another workstation, I have to change the incoming port forward. If you have a lot of techs doing this it'll be useless or at least painful.
You can work around this by having Ultravncc one click configured per tech going to their own PC/port/whatever. You can just add each tech as an entry in the config file like so:
[HOST]
Terry
-connect 192.168.1.102:5500 -noregistry
[HOST]
Joe
-connect 192.168.1.102:5501 -noregistry
[HOST]
Smitty
-connect 192.168.1.102:5502 -noregistry
[HOST]
Jonsey
-connect 192.168.1.102:5503 -noregistry
posted by damn dirty ape at 7:43 AM on January 25, 2010
You can work around this by having Ultravncc one click configured per tech going to their own PC/port/whatever. You can just add each tech as an entry in the config file like so:
[HOST]
Terry
-connect 192.168.1.102:5500 -noregistry
[HOST]
Joe
-connect 192.168.1.102:5501 -noregistry
[HOST]
Smitty
-connect 192.168.1.102:5502 -noregistry
[HOST]
Jonsey
-connect 192.168.1.102:5503 -noregistry
posted by damn dirty ape at 7:43 AM on January 25, 2010
Best answer: http://www.mikogo.com/ is my current favourite.
It's free and has worked through all firewalls so far including via sat phone.
posted by samj at 8:26 AM on January 25, 2010 [1 favorite]
It's free and has worked through all firewalls so far including via sat phone.
posted by samj at 8:26 AM on January 25, 2010 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks for the inputs so far. I've got lots of experience with VNC but not the single-click. That's pretty hot. I like.
Teamviewer looks good, BUT we would be a "commercial" usage...(we charge people for help after all), unless I'm somehow misunderstanding that.
Mikogo is nice, I like that they just enter a session ID and then I assume control. It's the winner so far.
Keep 'em coming!
posted by TomMelee at 9:54 AM on January 25, 2010
Teamviewer looks good, BUT we would be a "commercial" usage...(we charge people for help after all), unless I'm somehow misunderstanding that.
Mikogo is nice, I like that they just enter a session ID and then I assume control. It's the winner so far.
Keep 'em coming!
posted by TomMelee at 9:54 AM on January 25, 2010
Best answer: Bomgar. Not free, mac/pc, stupid simple for the end user, quick install and automatic uninstall.
posted by enfa at 9:57 AM on January 25, 2010
posted by enfa at 9:57 AM on January 25, 2010
https://www.copilot.com/ may be another option. Haven't used it myself but they have a free trial offer on the site.
posted by xufasch at 11:55 AM on January 25, 2010
posted by xufasch at 11:55 AM on January 25, 2010
Copilot works reasonably well, except for dual monitors. Free on weekends.
posted by djb at 2:36 PM on January 25, 2010
posted by djb at 2:36 PM on January 25, 2010
Response by poster: If anyone else comes late to the fray, feel free to comment. I'ma go ahead and mark this one resolved and mark a couple favorites.
For the record, for now we're sticking with Mikigo because I really, really like the web-login interface and the cost. (Free, even for commercial.)
Thanks folks!
posted by TomMelee at 5:02 PM on January 25, 2010
For the record, for now we're sticking with Mikigo because I really, really like the web-login interface and the cost. (Free, even for commercial.)
Thanks folks!
posted by TomMelee at 5:02 PM on January 25, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
Downside is that it's a one-to-one. I have a port forwarded on my work and home firewalls to point to my workstation. If I need to access the incoming connection it from another workstation, I have to change the incoming port forward. If you have a lot of techs doing this it'll be useless or at least painful.
It is free, and it does support file (but not a whole folder) transfer. It's certainly "paid" for itself.
posted by Fat Elvis at 6:52 AM on January 25, 2010