Another option instead of TeamViewer

antspants · Apr 12, 2024

Looking forward to finding out. The app looks great and I’d be stoked if I get to help this member, remotely.

jimbo45 · Apr 12, 2024

Hi folks
@antspants

slightly O.T but worth a mention.

Another way to "Bust" the greed of teamviewer

The main thing is if you can connect remotely via some sort of Internet - the big thing is you need your IP address which changes (or can change). -- I mean the "public IP" address that the Internet sees from your browser connection.

So a little trick is to just check this IP address every so often -- say every 60 mins / 120 mins or whatever and use a little script to email it to yourself so at any time if you lose connection you can re-connect by using the updated IP address. Afterall that's only what some people like dyndns etc used to do (often at a charge).

So to "Break" Teamviewer - so you don't have to pay a bonkers 25 USD a month (US) for a trivial thing : Here's a Linux script which you can easily modify -- I think you can do the same on Windows with telnet (can be installed via add optional features). No need for any email client on your machine to be running to send this.

#!/bin/bash
# Send email from bash
# simple script to send simple email with your IP address (external)

read -p "Enter SMTP email server address: " server
read -p "Enter SMTP Port: " port
read -p "Enter Your Email Address: " from
read -p "Enter Recipient's Email Address: " to
# get your public IP address
myip="$(dig +short myip.opendns.com @ReSolver1.opendns.com)"
# create message
function mail_input {
echo "ehlo $(hostname -f)"
echo "MAIL FROM: <$from>"
echo "RCPT TO: <$to>"
echo "DATA"
echo "From: <$from>"
echo "To: <$to>"
echo "Subject: Testing SMTP Mail"
echo " "
echo "Your public internet address is "
echo $myip
echo " "
echo "finished"
echo "."
echo "quit"
}

mail_input | netcat $server $port || err_exit

Don't forget to finish the inline text with the "." line before the SMTP quit command.

Cheers -- and "Bow Locks" to those "Bar Stewards" at money grabbing Teamviewer.

You might need to add some security such as SLSS or whatever but for a lot of ISP's this does the job.

In Linux use a CRONTAB to run the job at your desired interval, on Windows use any job scheduler for the same thing.

jimbo

antspants · Apr 12, 2024

We used Quick Assist. It wouldn't connect at first, second attempt was fine.
I have no idea if Quick Assist has voice but I rather call via my telephone anyway, so I called the member in the US.

What a success that was! It was really nice talking to a member but it was even nicer fixing an issue that was causing the member stress for a week or over. Everything fixed, brilliant!

antspants · Apr 12, 2024

The only thing I didn’t have time to read up on was if the ability to copy paste text from my PC to the users was possible, which would of made the process a little bit quicker as I had notes that I needed to complete the tasks, copy/paste would of been useful.

The other thing was my eyesight, the member has a 4k monitor, some things I almost needed a magnifying glass for which made typing an issue (hence copy paste usefulness). Something else to look into I suppose.

jimbo45 · Apr 12, 2024

antspants said:
The only thing I didn’t have time to read up on was if the ability to copy paste text from my PC to the users was possible, which would of made the process a little bit quicker as I had notes that I needed to complete the tasks, copy/paste would of been useful.

The other thing was my eyesight, the member has a 4k monitor, some things I almost needed a magnifying glass for which made typing an issue (hence copy paste usefulness). Something else to look into I suppose.

Well done

Nice to see this sort of thing being done from people 1000's of KM apart without chucking nuclear missiles at each other.

Cheers
jimbo

antspants · Apr 12, 2024

jimbo45 said:
without chucking nuclear missiles at each other.

fixer · Apr 12, 2024

For years I used TeamViewer simply to enable me to use the Win10 PC upstairs from my Win 11 laptop in the lounge where we spend most of our time.. It always worked faultlessly though I had constantly to ensure TV on the PC never got updated beyond v13. Then I discovered that Remote Desktop Connection, built into both Win 10 and Win 11, worked just as perfectly in every respect, so that was the end of TV for us.

antspants · Apr 12, 2024

I haven’t tried many, I am liking Quick Access. I tried TeamViewer years ago, I don’t remember it much.
Stardock makes one called Multiplicity, it was pretty impressive. I bought it because I got sick of walking to my sons office to fix his PC. I may as well had of been sitting in front of his computer, there didn’t seem to be anything I couldn’t do remotely including file transfer, copy paste between PC’s etc.
But I had to uninstall it from his PC at one point and it basically broke the OS doing so. I don’t know what happened and haven’t wanted to try since. Might revisit it, but Quick Access did the trick today.

jimbo45 · Apr 13, 2024

fixer said:
For years I used TeamViewer simply to enable me to use the Win10 PC upstairs from my Win 11 laptop in the lounge where we spend most of our time.. It always worked faultlessly though I had constantly to ensure TV on the PC never got updated beyond v13. Then I discovered that Remote Desktop Connection, built into both Win 10 and Win 11, worked just as perfectly in every respect, so that was the end of TV for us.

Two problems with RDC.
1) I think the target computer must be at least W11 (or if using W10) PRO, not the Home editions.

2) If RDC'ing over the Internet you need to know the IP address of the target computer as it could change. That's why I posted the script to obtain your "Internet IP address" from the target computer and every so often and send an email via command line not needing an email client to be active.

A bugbear also for using RDC for remote assistance is that you'll usually need to know the Internal IP address of the target computer on your lan -- e.g 192.168.1.59 or whatever and open up port (I think it's 3389) on it which if trying to explain this to a remote maybe elderly person won't be easy.

The Quick Access tool is the one for the job. RDC is better for people who want to be able to access their home computer from remote locations.

I'd suggest though if it's just for accessing files a safer protocol would be to use a simple web server application -- then at least you could have decent encryption over the public Internet.

Cheers
jimbo

Porthos · Apr 13, 2024

Distant Desktop - Free Remote Desktop Software

With this remote desktop software you can control your computers from any device at a distance. Free for personal and commercial use.

www.distantdesktop.com

jimbo45 · Apr 13, 2024

TechnoMage2021 said:
After reading this thread earlier today, like before lunch, I did some digging. I could not find my old Team Viewer, which I've not used now for several years, so I downloaded a new version.

I also downloaded that "UltraViewer" and installed it.
Seems like a nice enough little program but....it did not seem to have a Peer to Peer file transfer option.
Now for a tech, that's an extremely important function, as I would upload programs to a remote PC, maybe half a world away, and then run the install of those programs on the remote PC.

Then I ran Team Viewer. I was able to upload O.E.Classic, my email program, from this PC to its sister PC in the living room, run the installer, then set up my email account and send an email....all by remote control.
Team Viewer still worked pretty much like I remember it. The install and setup was a real PITA, but once that was done, it was OK.

I've not tried any other of the possible programs, yet, but without P2P File Transfer, any such program would be a Bust!

Porthos said:
Distant Desktop - Free Remote Desktop Software

With this remote desktop software you can control your computers from any device at a distance. Free for personal and commercial use.

www.distantdesktop.com

View attachment 93336

I don't like those things that say "suitable for infrequent use" -- needs to be more specific -- this product seems far too restrictive for people who regularly are on the move and want to login to their own computers at home, play video's etc etc and use their remote computer just like they were sitting in front of it locally. It's a bit like vague laws "Liable to cause a breach of the peace", or "In the interests of National security" etc. There's usually no written legal definition of what those actually are so often petty jobsworth officials can just decide on a whim and as "the recipient" your rights are usually pretty well non existent.

I'd avoid this one --- plus if you were any sort of business you'd soon get swamped with ads asking you to "go Pro" --i.e pay for the commercial model.

Coprporate (whether huge businesses or one / two men operations) have different needs to individual / domestic users and I think the OP was wanting something suitable for a basic domestic user.

Besides I have several computers at home -- so long as the Internet connection is robust enough I might well want simultaneous outgoing connections. Even bog standard RDC allows that -- simply RDC each different computer to differnt home loacl IP address with different ports e.g 3389, 3390netc.

Cheers
jimbo

antspants · Apr 13, 2024

jimbo45 said:
I don't like those things that say "suitable for infrequent use" -- needs to be more specific -- this product seems far too restrictive for people who regularly are on the move and want to login to their own computers at home, play video's etc etc and use their remote computer just like they were sitting in front of it locally. It's a bit like vague laws "Liable to cause a breach of the peace", or "In the interests of National security" etc. There's usually no written legal definition of what those actually are so often petty jobsworth officials can just decide on a whim and as "the recipient" your rights are usually pretty well non existent.

I'd avoid this one --- plus if you were any sort of business you'd soon get swamped with ads asking you to "go Pro" --i.e pay for the commercial model.

Coprporate (whether huge businesses or one / two men operations) have different needs to individual / domestic users and I think the OP was wanting something suitable for a basic domestic user.

Besides I have several computers at home -- so long as the Internet connection is robust enough I might well want simultaneous outgoing connections. Even bog standard RDC allows that -- simply RDC each different computer to differnt home loacl IP address with different ports e.g 3389, 3390netc.

Cheers
jimbo

It’s pretty clear on what’s allowed, “Use for personal & commercial purposes” “17 hours / month” as a free user.
There is no way to know if it nags with ads without trying it I would assume. And if you were any sort of business, surely you’d buy the license?
Same would go for people wanting to log in to watch movies, not sure why you’d use it for that (that’s what PLEX is for) they would also buy a licence, surely?

Microsoft Quick Access is free, that would be a bonus for some I would assume.

Porthos · Apr 13, 2024

jimbo45 said:
I don't like those things that say "suitable for infrequent use" -- needs to be more specific

jimbo45 said:
this product seems far too restrictive for people who regularly are on the move and want to login to their own computers at home, play video's etc etc and use their remote computer just like they were sitting in front of it locally.

I used the free for a long time but wanted to serve more than one client a a time. Went pro.

jimbo45 · Apr 13, 2024

Porthos said:
View attachment 93337

I used the free for a long time but wanted to serve more than one client a a time. Went pro.

I logon a lot to remote computers -- as for example I can watch sport e.g Sat afternoon premier league UK football which is geoblocked if in the UK or some other jurisdictions but watching from your own computer outside the geoblocked location and also access to TV and movies plus my own music etc etc.

Saves messing around with a load of VPN's and all sorts of other hassles.

I'd certainly run foul of the 17 hr limit and I definitely want more than 1 simultaneous connection.
Why pay for something that's Free, far more flexible, uses standard Windows functions and not very difficult to set up -- it's easy enough either on Linux or from Windows -- even running from a Windows VM on your local laptop to remote computers.

For corporate or work use the application might be worth it -- but for individuals - don't really think so.

Cheers
jimbo

andrew129260 · Apr 13, 2024

jimbo45 said:
I logon a lot to remote computers -- as for example I can watch sport e.g Sat afternoon premier league UK football which is geoblocked if in the UK or some other jurisdictions but watching from your own computer outside the geoblocked location and also access to TV and movies plus my own music etc etc.

Saves messing around with a load of VPN's and all sorts of other hassles.

I'd certainly run foul of the 17 hr limit and I definitely want more than 1 simultaneous connection.
Why pay for something that's Free, far more flexible, uses standard Windows functions and not very difficult to set up -- it's easy enough either on Linux or from Windows -- even running from a Windows VM on your local laptop to remote computers.

For corporate or work use the application might be worth it -- but for individuals - don't really think so.

Cheers
jimbo

try chrome remote desktop then. Also, you dont need chrome installed to use it.