free remote control software?
Being competent at solving computer problems, I regularly have friends and family come to me for help. I’m happy to assist (in exchange for food and booze), but when the person happens to be out of town it can be challenging. Does anybody know of good, free remote control software that works when both systems are behind NAT (firewall) devices?
Loading ...
If you’re using windows, I’ve found that a remote assistance request (Start->Programs->Remote Assistance) works pretty well through firewalls. It’ll email a link to you, the helper, which will let you remote desktop connection in to them.
This is all, of course, assuming windows on both sides…
PcHelpWare from UltraVNC is what you want. It’s free, it’s customizable, it’s multi-platform, and works behind a NAT.
Essentially, the way it works is that you open up a VNC “listener” and then the remote person initiates the “call” by running an executable on their machine. You must accept the call and once you do, you are remote controlling their PC and they can see everything you do. Either they or you can cancel the “call” at any time by closing the icon in the system tray. Very neat.
The PcHelpWare executable is customizable with your personalized support info, too. I have it on my consulting website for clients to download — the nice thing about it is that I just point them to a URL, they download an .exe, they double-click on it, and that’s all they need to do.