I did a search for this topic and found several people recommending Logmein.com as a free alternative to gotomypc.com. Searching on my own, I found another, Kaseya. Of course, there’s always the built-in Remote Desktop option in XP Pro (which is the OS I have), but I’m not sure how to set this up exactly.
What are some other (free) alternatives to gotomypc.com that you’ve found and like?
VNC. It’s the original, and is really rather good. UltraVNC is as free as you can get (although the interface is a bit clunky.)
That’s great, Pat, but the OP was asking for a free product, not a free trial before paying.
I use LogMeIn exclusively. It’s a little slow, but you can pretty much do anything on the remote computer.
I use and like TeamViewer. Setup of the remote client is easy.
Remote desktop can work , but it is not as simple as activating it on your Windows PC.
If you have a typical internet connection, where the ISP provides an IP to your router, and the router assigns an internal IP to each machine in your home network, you need to define a route to the PC you wish to control for port 3389.
Usually this means assigning a fixed IP to that PC, then setting up “port forwarding” on your router.
The next hurdle is knowing what external IP the ISP has assigned to your router. This can change after a reboot of the router etc.
You can use a free service like DynDNS and run an application on your PC that periodically updates the service with your current IP, so that you can use an easy to remember host name to connect via Remote Desktop instead of calling your cat and asking him or her to sign on to your router and read you the IP.
You can even set up most routers to periodically update the DynDNS service, this is handy if you have a remote webcam running somewhere where no PC’s are kept running.
All this routing and configuring are the reason that “LogMeIn” and “GoToMyPC” products exist. LogMeIn seems to work well for both Mac’s and PC’s (ie you can control a Mac from a PC and visa-versa. You don’t get file sharing and remote printing with the free version, but you can typically get files back from the remote PC by browsing to an email web client and mailing the file back to you (if it isnt’ too big), or using FTP from the remote PC to send the file to your FTP directory at your ISP (if they give you a web site, you’ll have one).
I found I could do anything I needed to with Logmein (free version). It was also easy to set up.
I thought I’d chime in here in support of LogMeIn. I use the Free version at home and my company uses it in addition to paying for a few dozen Pro licenses. The company also uses LMI Central and LMI Rescue.
Signing up for a trial version automatically gets you the Pro version during the trial, in the hope that you’ll get hooked on the extra features and want to pay for them. If you don’t, your software will eventually revert to the free version (and you’ll occasionally get e-mails offering to restore those features you miss - for the cost of a Pro license).
The same company puts out Join.Me which is a screen-sharing utility (kind of the reverse of LogMeIn?) and their Pro/Free Trial scheme works the same as the LogMeIn product. The nice thing is that if you have a LogMeIn account, the Join.Me utility can use the same credentials.
G!
How much does it cost?
I’ll buy it
The time is getting lost.
I’ll try it.
…–Jonathan Edwards
…Sunshine (Go away today)
Reported post by davidjeffrey as spam.
I’m a big fan of SplashTop. The main thing is that it’s fast. It’s fast enough to watch video.
I also use TeamViewer.
Since this old thread has been revived, I will point out that LogMeIn no longer offers a free version.
Moderator Note
In case Tom Tildrum’s post doesn’t make sense, the thread was revived by a spammer who has since been disappeared.
LogMeIn was a good free option when this thread was started, but like Tom Tildrum notes, they no longer have a free option.
I use TeamViewer and I am very happy with it,