Suggest an alternative to &%$!ing TeamViewer

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have been happily using Teamviewer (TV) to manage my various home computers and provide support for my parents, who live about 800 miles away and often have computer problems. While on vacation a few weeks ago, I used it to transfer some files from my home machine to my laptop. Shortly after that, TV declared that it had detected commercial use of the product, and that I would no longer be able to make connections to other computers for more a few minutes unless I bought the commercial version, which starts at $50 a month. (Private personal use has always been free.) Needless to say, this is absurdly and prohibitively expensive for my purposes.

You can apply through an online form to have this automatic determination overridden, and the company claims that they will respond within seven days. I filled out the form more than a month ago, and have had no response.

According to a live human at technical support, the company has started enforcing the non-commercial use policy more strictly in the past month or two. But there was nothing that human could do: the only solution is through the form.

This is infuriating, and their support forum is full of angry people who have been similarly inconvenienced. But no solution seems to be forthcoming.

I tried completely uninstalling and removing all traces of the program (including from the registry), then setting up a new account with a different e-mail address, but apparently their servers track computers by IP or MAC addresses, so all my efforts had no effect: when I reinstalled, my computer had the same ID it had had before, and the software was hobbled as before.

So I’m looking for a new program I can use for remotely accessing other computers over the Internet. What are your suggestions?

Thanks.

2

I use TightVNC. It may not be as easy to set up as Teamviewer but it sounds like you know what you’re doing.

3

I still use Timbuktu

4

Several years ago, there were ads for a commercial offering called GoToAssist for helping your family members, but I see they’ve abandoned that market and are now even more expensive than commercial TeamViewer.

If you’re using Windows at both ends: Windows has a built-in Remote Assistance mechanism. I’ve never used it, personally. AIUI, the person in distress sends an invitation to the helper, by e-mail (which may already be complex for some people), and a password appears on screen to be dictated over the phone. The invitations are time-limited, so this has to be done every time assistance is needed. It seems to be allow connections between disparate versions of Windows, from Windows XP through Windows 10, but the method to access it has changed considerably between versions of Windows (Windows 7, Windows 10).

If you’re both using Windows 10, there’s also a second, separate system called Quick Assist, which appears to be simpler.

5

Oh, possibly even simpler: Skype has a screen sharing feature.

6

The observatory I volunteer at uses “any desk” to remote into each of the windows 7 or 10 computers mounted on the back of each telescope. They like that way better than Team Viewer. I’m not sure why.