Remote control your desktop from anywhere for free

Nowadays it has become a need of to access data at anytime, from anywhere. One cannot carry all of his data along with him but one can get from his home computer very easily . Below are the various free options which one can think of using to ease of his life.

Logmein

No doubt the easiest service that can be use to remote control the computer. Just go to www.logmein.com, register yourself and then just add different computers, which you want to access. When you will click on Add Computers to add the computer which you want to access, it downloads a software and installs it on the computer. After the whole procedure is complete, the new computer is displayed in the account. The site offers a wide range of services ranging from free( which is only enables to access one computer that too in presentation mode) to commercial services like remote support.

GotomyPc

It is same as Logmein.com but doesnot has a trial version instead of free version.
For more info click here

TeamViewer

The best part of this software is, it is free for personal use. You just need to download it both the computers, connected to internet, which you want to share and run it. It require authentication on both the computer every time when it is run, that means that one can only use it if he wants to share his desktop with is friend on the other computer. But the software is secure because a new Username ID and Password and generated each time it is run while the computers are online.
For more info click here

Avvenu

Recently acquired by Nokia, allows one to easy control and share the computer from other computer or mobile phone. Its free and involves donwloading and installation of the software and also allows free file sharing.
For more info click here

Remotely Anywhere

Fast, secure system administration FROM ANYWHERE. RemotelyAnywhere 8 offers industry leading security and performance for remote administration. It is two flavors, Workstation Edition and Server Edition. It is available for 30 day trial and has the following features:-

» Vista Compatible
» Disk Mapping
» 64-bit Compatible
» System Dashboard

» Guest Invite
» Public Key improvements
» PDA Remote Control
» Access via Any Web browser

» Easy Enterprise Deployment
» SSH & FTP
» File Transfer & Synchronization
» Automatic Alerts

For more info click here



VNC
The common name heard when the topic of remote access comes. For all who dont know what is VNC, it is Virtual Network Computing and is based on server/client architecture. The server part of the VNC is installed and configured and installed on the computer which is to be access remotely and the client of can be used on any computer from which one wants to access the remote computer. VNC comes in different flavors, but all of them work in the same way. It is free to download can be used on different flavors of Operating System like Windows XP,Windows Vista, Linux,Unix. Also using while using it you have to make sure the particular ports of VNC that is 5800 & 5900 are open and forwarded properly on your router. Click here for more info on Port Forwarding.
One can choose any of the following flavors of VNC:-

» UltraVNC
» RealVnc
» TightVnc

Below are various options on MacOS

Clients (Mac OS X):

» JollysFastVNC - currently in alpha, but already the best client out there in terms of speed and international keyboard support.
» VNCDimension seems to have partial support for non-US keyboards (but no dead keys) and very fast graphical updates.
» Chicken of the VNC - No international key support, works OK with the built-in Mac OS X server.
* VNCThing - read my blog entry for more (and a link to the source code).
» Workspot modified VNC


Clients (Other):

» FlashVNC - a Flash viewer.
» MochaVNC - for Palm and Pocket PC, supports the newer procotol versions and has a built-in SSH tunneler.
» PVNC, a VNC client for the PlayStation Portable
» DirectVNC, fbvnc - framebuffer-based clients.
» Palm VNC - with server-side scaling extensions
» Enhanced Full-Screen Clients
» SSHVNC - a combined client

Servers:

» Schnitz Remote
» Alkit VNC - allows single-window sharing.
» RealVNC - the original (and still the reference) implementation. Also has the most efficient client (old homepage)
» Vine Server (formerly called OSXvnc) - native Mac OS X server, which now supports multiple simultaneous remote sessions
» Ultra VNC Single-Click Server - a nice, customizable Windows server that helpdesk staff can e-mail to someone in need of help.
» J2ME VNC - for MIDP/J2ME
» MetaVNC, an intriguing way to share single windows

Tools and Libraries:

» VNC Snapshot - can take screenshots of a section of the display and save them in JPEG format.

» VNCj - a nice way to serve Java AWT applications.
» Vnc2swf - a Flash recording tool, which now has an editing tool available.
» LibVNCServer - also has a client library
» perlVNC - fear.
» PyVNC - a Python VNC client
» VNC Reflector