Looking for alternatives to Teamviewer

[taq8ojh]

I can't imagine paying 250 dollars a year for 4 PCs.

 

[vbuggy]

Hands down my choice (and i was using teamviewer before this) is Logmein Central. If you are doing IT support work on servers and desktops, and want to save yourself a ton of traveling for stupid shit you can fix in a jiffy, this program works great. I've been using it for a year now. Also, when it's installed, it keeps all your connection info right on your web interface account page. Lastly, it is installed, but there is zero network config required. You can create and send an install link to anyone and in 2 mins you're in! Love it. Is there anything better?

All of those are things that TV does FYI.

I can't really see how it's expensive for company use - I'm a de facto one man company, remote access is useful (I look after a veritable phalanx of my own gear), and from my POV if any kind of remote access requirement is remotely key to what you do and you don't have chump change from your revenue to pay the measly amount for TV upgrades, then you're definitely in the wrong business.

 

[soldsoul4foos]

Well said.

 

[PliotronX]

This thread rocks, we use ShowMyPC which is a rebadged TightVNC and is very slow. Are any of these as responsive as RDP?

 

[drebo]

Try Dameware.

This. It's ~$250/technician.

It may not work in all environments, though.

 

[oynaz]

Any suggestions for my needs:

We use TeamViewer right now. It works great, but their upgrade policy is simply not OK. We have paid for TeamViewer 7, and it does what everything we want. However, our customers are slowly adopting newer versions, which forces us to pay for expensive upgrades, which only gives us features we do not need. The sneaky upgrader which upgrades your paid version to an unpaid one is just adding insult to injury.
It is not that we cannot afford to pay for new TeamViewer versions, but I feel like TeamViewer are being less than honest, and it irks me to support business practices like that.

Our needs:
I work in a 30-man company. Everybody might need remote access, but only about 10 or so use it regularly. The rest only use it once in a while.

The needs are normally support for our customers' end-users (we are stricly B2B). The TeamViewer Quick support, where you simply mail the end user a link which enables then to download and run an .exe file, works fine.

We need to share the screen and transfer files nothing more.

Which alternative might be best for us? Suggestions?

 

[Flopp]

Try ScreenConnect. Most likely you will need multiple licenses or the unlimited license.

 

[taq8ojh]

After giving TeamViewer another chance recenrly I have to say it works pretty well. Guess last time I tried it was some buggy old version or something.

 

[AFurryReptile]

Just piping in to say that ScreenConnect added a feature that I asked for ~8 months ago.

In the system tray, they've added the option of creating custom "Right-Click" links that I use to link to other things. I've turned that icon into my tech support "hub", which contains a link to our ticket portal, a mailto link for our support email, a link for our self-help wiki, and another one to our password reset page!

 

[rgldsmth]

LMI Rescue, Join.me, Google remote desktop

 

[Sait]

Hi all, bit late to the party but as I was reading this post with the same issue, later on I found Google "Chrome remote desktop" its free, simple and easy to use, you can connect to anyone to assist them. Setup your own computers to access at any time while not there.

The only feature, that is missing, at least for my needs is to connect to a computer that is not on your account while the user is not there. This is because the code to connect to another user is always generated on the spot, then invalid after the session stops.

Maybe I missed the option on how to use it, and if any case, google is always improving their software so it might improve.

To anyone interested, this is a free alternative. ^_^

 

[John Connor]

I have used Teamviewer and I like it. I was able to drag and drop files. Teamviewer uses AES 256 bit encryption and is HIPAA compliant. I wouldn't touch Google with a ten foot pole.

 

[oynaz]

Nothing wrong with TeamViewer from a technical standpoint. It is their business practice which throws me off.

 

[John Connor]

The one great thing about TeamViewer is that I have the App on my phone, and since I Two factored damn near everything and anything I always have to use my phone to get the code. Well, all I do on my Comp. is launch TeamViewer and remote into my phone to get the code. You can't copy paste (at least I don't think you can) in the phone, but it's better than trying to keep your phone near the computer all the time. If you use Authy then you can install the Chrome extension. If you clean the temp files though you have to reenter your phone number to retrieve your Authy account in Chrome.

 

[imported_TekWiz]

That "Commercial use suspected or detected" sure is annoying with TeamViewer. Most people who are not in the remote support business wouldn't want to pay around $1000 for a license. Sure if you use it daily to support paying remote clients then buying a license would make sense. Otherwise I just found there is a new company "UltraViewer" and for now it's free for all uses. There is nothing wrong with VNC but does require prior configuration of firewalls. Otherwise it's just as fast and responsive if you're using fast connections. Please be aware that you can use a free Java program called PortMapper to configure routers for VNC even if you don't have the login information for them! (It uses UPnP Universal Plug n' Play)

 

[John Connor]

Universal Plug and Prey.

VNC can be cracked. I have the program in a Linux VM.

Team Viewer is HIPAA compliant.

Team Viewer is supported on many platforms. Even Blackberry.

Just make sure you use Twofactor Auth if you have an account. If you need quick access to someone's computer you can have them download the standalone client. No install required and TV goes right through a firewall. VNC is more for local networks.

 

[mohan2010]

Join.me and AnyDesk are Options after the TeamViewer for me. There are a large number of remote desktop applications available you can check this list of Teamviewer Alternative.

 

[Daniel Vivas]

TV is great but not every IT budget can justify their prices.

We switched to AEROADMIN in our office and pretty happy with it. It looks like TV initital release but covers almost all my needs in remote desktop.

 

[PliotronX]

TV is great but not every IT budget can justify their prices.

We switched to AEROADMIN in our office and pretty happy with it. It looks like TV initital release but covers almost all my needs in remote desktop.

AeroAdmin is pretty dope! They are constantly throwing new features into it and listening to the surveys for upcoming features. Though I have been finding myself using AnyDesk quite a bit; it was formed by some developers who defected from TeamViewer and it works very well.

 

[John Connor]

Too bad Anydesk doesn't support mobile devices. I have 2FA all of my Internet accounts up to and including Google and Team Viewer its self. But I use TV to remote into my phone from my computer to grab the 2FA code instead of having to grab my phone all the time.

 

[aniket93]

Don't get me wrong - I love Teamviewer. But the license is expensive and I have to convince my company that they want to buy it...

If you guys know anything on par with the functionality and speed of Teamviewer, let me know. I am aware of dozens of different support tools, but in my experience, most are VNC-based - and I hate VNC. It's ancient, and slow, and has issues with firewalls.

I've tried LogMeIn, too. I don't like it as much as TV, and anyway the cost would be more than a TV license.

Not sure what else to try. Teamviewer is just good; everything else seems bad in comparison.

Use teamviewer in VMware, you can use it like a commercial version for free!

Or you can try any desk, aeroadmin... Both are great free options for commercial use.

I myself use anydesk most of the time!

 

[John Connor]

That doesn't make any sense. Using TV in VMware means you have no access to the host.

 

[aniket93]

That doesn't make any sense. Using TV in VMware means you have no access to the host.

You actually do!

 

[John Connor]

Engrish? What does that mean? How do you access the host from VMware?

 

[Bernard20]

I think that team viewer is better than other software, but if you are looking for an alternative then the only Open Source alternative that I know about is OpenMeetings. It's a JEE application that's not too hard to deploy if you had some previous experience with tomcat. If you plan to host meetings with many participants, you'll probably need a server with a decent amount of RAM. It does audio/video conferencing and screen sharing. Screen sharing streaming is not very bandwith-optimized, it may work over intranet, but it's not very reliable over the internet.